Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I’ve got you now, Sonic!” Eggman crooned.

Sonic, who’d found himself solidly trapped, hated to admit his archnemesis could be right about that.

His fault for being sloppy. Eggman had been setting up bases left and right and robots had flooded over the continents; often a clear indication the good Doctor was plotting something, and therefore ample reason to pay him a ‘visit’. Thus, Sonic had blasted off and broken into the first base he’d encountered, in a snowy mountain region absolutely stocked with obnoxious searchlights. Eggman either sucked at being subtle or wasn’t trying in the first place, Sonic had smirked to himself amusedly before going right on the attack.

But where tearing through Eggman’s army left and right and descending into the belly of the base had been easy, almost too easy, his final Spindash had made Sonic rush into an odd cylindrical room made solely of metal.

And the exit had fallen shut behind him with an ominous thud.

Sonic was never one to let himself be locked up into rooms of which the exits fell shut with ominous thuds, for that was always a bad sign. He’d whirled around on his heels and tried blasting back the exact same way… but the half-second he’d needed for that had been enough to trap him completely. And to Eggman’s credit, despite Sonic’s various kicks and full-body slams, not even the slightest dents had been made in the walls since.

Also the huge broadcasting screen spanning a significant part of the circumference of the room had been as crisp and clean as one could expect from Eggman technology when it had sprung to life.

It had made it all the easier to see how Eggman’s smirk oozed with danger.

Still, Sonic rolled his eyes by reflex at the cliché words getting flung his way. Nothing he hadn’t heard before. And yet, at the same time… Exits falling shut ominously was one thing, but Eggman appearing on broadcasting screens another. It made the sense of unease that had been gnawing at Sonic’s quills from the moment he got trapped grow only stronger. Why wasn’t the man in this room too? Where was he then, if not here? The scene of the area behind Eggman told Sonic little: endless green screens with dots and colours coated the walls, while beside him Sonic discerned something that looked like a big red lever. Weird.

But like heck Sonic would show any worries or questions, and thus the speedster put a similar dangerous smile on his face and scoldingly wagged a finger. “Not even here to greet me in person, Eggman? How rude of you.”

His archnemesis cackled in turn. “In what world would I put myself in a room with you, ready to be attacked?”

“Hmm. Good point,” Sonic nodded with mock understanding. The fact that Eggman often hung out in his Egg Mobile in the midst of the action was a thought firm in his mind, but also the speedster knew the madman would long have gotten grabbed by the throat should he also have been here in this strange cylindrical chamber. But that just meant Sonic could focus all his attention on getting out, and thus he launched himself into a Spindash once more.

“Trying to escape? Don’t even think of it,” got grinned at him from the screen as Sonic blasted off, this attack aimed right at Eggman’s pixeled face. “With my calculations and genius, even you cannot break through these reinforced walls, dear Sonic!”

Thunking back to the ground with a grunt and the wall remaining rather unmoving and undented did add some oomph to those statements, Sonic had to concede. A leer sent to the spot he’d been trying to hammer through showed it as unharmed as all the others. Sonic himself was slightly less lucky: sturdy as he was when it came to running into robots and objects at high speeds, he had to be careful not to slam headfirst into walls too many times. A slight ache had already begun forming on his scalp.

But Sonic wouldn’t be Sonic if he didn’t face such a situation with a grin on his face and sass galore.

“Aw, rats,” the speedster pouted exaggeratedly, pushing himself to his feet with silly tumbles and ridiculing spins. “You did get me, Doc. Whatever will I do now? How will I ever escape from your terrifying little empty room? Or are you going to wait until I die of boredom?”

With an exaggerated yawn pushed past Sonic’s lips for accentuation the speedster sent Eggman a mocking smirk, the man’s eyes narrowing behind his glasses. “You will wish you’d have died of boredom here,” got spat out. “Finally you will no longer be a pain in my side! I’ve created the ultimate plan to rid myself of you once and for all!”

“Same thing you always say. And guess what has never worked out?” Sonic winked back. No way he’d show Eggman that slamming head-first into probably-dozens-of-inches-thick metallic walls had smarted the slightest bit; the speedster stood tall as ever, one hand casually placed on his side.

Eggman cackled anew.

With another roll of his eyes at the dramatic handswayings and gesturings of his archnemesis that accompanied his laughter Sonic tapped his foot. “I’m waiting for the big reveal, Eggman.”

…Which turned out to be an Emerald, pulled out of the doctor’s pocket with dramatic flair.

Sonic raised an eyebrow. “Wow. Spooky.”

But the speedster could not deny Eggman grinned far too eagerly for a plot that just involved materialising Emeralds and not much else. And the moment Sonic’s eyes laid on the glowing gemstone, those prickles of unease in his quills got a dozenfold worse.

“Let me ask you a question, Sonic,” Eggman began his spiel. “What is your knowledge on dimensions?”

“Length, width, and height,” Sonic hummed, curling himself into a Spindash again. Might as well keep trying to get out while he was getting evilly monologued at.

“Yes, very good. However, are you aware there is a fourth as well?”

Grumbling as he crashed into the wall again and nothing happened again either, Sonic landed back onto the ground. “That’s time,” he humoured Eggman further, rubbing his temples. “Which you are wastin’ now, Eggman. Can we get to the point?”

“When my plan has been enacted, you will find yourself wishing that you’d spent longer listening to me,” the madman smirked at him. “If you find yourself wishing anything at all, that is! A plunge into the timestream as I am planning now has never been done by anyone before. Some would consider themselves lucky to be able to stand at the frontier of such a grand, unexplored-!”

“Hmhm. The timestream?” Sonic interrupted.

A second dirty look got sent his way, Eggman’s arms crossing and one finger tapping the top of the Emerald. “Tsk, tsk. I know this is incomprehensible for a lesser mind like yours, but try to keep up. I shall even shorten it for your impatient self,” the doctor chastised. “No matter what I do, you are always there to stop me. Yet, you have proven impossible to kill. If I were to throw a nuclear bomb on top of my base right now, you would be guaranteed to survive. Somehow.”

While smugly regarding the peeved look forming on his nemesis’ face, Sonic nodded with fake sympathy. “I can tell you why, Eggman. It’s entirely out of spite.”

“Call it spite, call it luck, call it fate; I don’t care,” Eggman growled back. His crossed arms tightened, the Emerald slowly thrown up and down in one hand, and Sonic stopped himself from curling into a ball again. He’d best listen to the big reveal Eggman would no doubt drop now… “All it has shown me is that I need something more. Something bigger. Something inescapable. Something that is not within the realms and possibilities of this world, so I can finally free myself of your presence! Something that is not a different dimension of space, for I know you can travel between those!” the other continued, and with each tumble of the Emerald in his hand, his smirk grew. “Something that has escaped the minds of all… except for me, of course.”

“And that would be the timestream,” Sonic concluded slowly, pursing his lips as he pondered. “Hey, Eggman, that’s great and all, but I’ve time-travelled before.”

“Indeed you have, dear Sonic. But that was with a specific destination in mind, in a place noted for its temporal anomalies. Here, however, I shall be sending you into the timestream, but not to somewhere. Just as how you can get lost between dimensions of space if you are not travelling to a specific other one, you can get lost in time if there is no destination set. And why would I send you somewhere specific?”

Sonic’s mind whirred, his brows furrowing. “…Yeahhhhh. That all sounds pretty unbelievable to me,” he settled on with a scoff. He had no idea if Eggman was right or not, but like heck he’d show any doubt or willingness to listen to what the madman said.

Yet Eggman’s grin only grew larger and larger. “Say goodbye to all you know and love, Sonic!” got crooned out. “Your rotten friends will never be able to find you in the tesseract that is time!”

“I have friends, contrary to some other people here. And they happen to be the smartest people in the world,” Sonic shrugged back callously. “They’ll either find out what to do and rescue me before anything happens, or they won’t but keep fighting all the same. You know none of us will ever give up.”

Eggman merely laughed.

“Farewell forever, Sonic the Hedgehog!” the man cackled, before he threw the Emerald up one more time with a dramatic flair. And then he caught it, and he spun around, and slammed it inside a machine of sorts Sonic couldn’t really make out amidst all those endless green screens, and with another ominous thud things crashed down and jumped up and began moving while lights began flickering and whirs began echoing and…!

Sonic’s head snapped upward as waves of pink burst from the ceiling.

They coated the walls of the room, torrents of a crackling energy jumping from ceiling to floor and back again. Sonic’s quills spiked, the sense of unease surging into one of dread, of get out, now!, and one last time the speedster shot into a ball, rushing at the metal wall…

And crying out as he ricocheted right off against the forcefield the pink energy had formed, pain blasting through his body.

Sonic dazedly shook his head, scowling as Eggman's whoops and cheers of victory filled the air. “You’re done for, Sonic! Finally, I have created the end for you!”

“Never,” the speedster growled back. He would just have to be faster than time itself, than whatever Eggman was planning…! With a deep breath drawn Sonic concentrated, legs kicking into movement underneath him yet body remaining in place. With enough speed thrown at it, maybe he could disrupt whatever that pink energy was somehow-!

But before Sonic could blast off, Eggman leaned forward to grab the big red lever beside and pulled it back in one fell swoop.

And the world shifted.

Sonic was still running. Or was he? Because Eggman roared with laughter as the speedster yelped, and the floor underneath him disappeared, and he got pulled upwards, towards the ceiling, towards the pink, legs uselessly flailing underneath him, his body spinning in helpless tumbles as if he got sucked into a black hole-!

But he was Sonic, and nothing ever fazed him.

“I’ll see you again soon, Doc!” Sonic yelled out over the laughter and the crackles and the whirs and the chaos, shooting his trademark smirk down one final time. But then colours flooded his vision and the room disappeared and he tumbled into…!

Endlessness.

And immovability.

Greys and browns behind him, and greys and blacks and reds ahead. Or was it the other way around? Sonic tried to reach out to it, to anything. But everything slugged, and stilled, and even the grimace he tried to push on his face at the lead-heavy weight of his unmovable arm took what felt like forever to form. Or had it not formed at all? Infinite scenes stretched out ahead of him, and behind him, and around him too; the same, or different, and he could not tell.

Think, the speedster urged himself. He wasn’t stuck; he couldn’t be stuck. The timestream had to be traversable even when not on Little Planet.

But he just floated, thoughts coiling into an endless spill of nonsense and fear jolting in Sonic's chest as he caught them threatening to slip away. Around him, the scene of the room in the base shifted: it flickered between light and dark, but then dark overtook it fully. And it remained dark as Sonic floated past, or through. Endlessly, eternally, nothing different ahead, nothing changing, just a contorted view of that room and nothing else-

Except for a sparkle of cyan. And a tint of grey.

Sonic would have gasped, if his mouth could open. Help!, he wanted to cry out to it. Help me!

Desperately the speedster floundered to move, to reach out somehow, before it would be gone, before it would be lost…! I’m here! Get me out! he wished to yell, but his teeth remained clenched together and he would slip past the cyan and grey and it’d be gone, he’d be stuck here forever-!

But then cyan became more.

Became brighter.

Became everything.

And feeling flooded through Sonic, and he could move.

Sonic’s hand shot out, grabbing at the glow that had overtaken his whole vision. His other joined, a force tugging at him, stronger and stronger as the shifting of the world stilled into a single scene-!

“I got you! Hold on!” a voice cried, before Sonic’s whole body got jolted back into… being.

And Sonic, who had been in a Super Peel Out when Eggman sucked him into the timestream and who thus went from complete immovability to something quite a bit faster than Mach 1, flew.

Into a wall.

Headfirst.

With a cry the speedster smashed against the metal. And where he’d been aching already from his fruitless attempts at breaking out of Eggman’s room at normal Spindash speed, this time…!

A blast of pain reverberated through Sonic’s skull. Crackling and white-hot, it struck him right on his forehead before shooting through his brain, all his senses dulling except for the agony. Pain through his whole body followed next as Sonic ricocheted right off the wall and smacked onto the ground next, quills bending painfully as they bore the brunt of the fall. His heartbeat thudded in his ears, rasping breaths for air got sucked into his lungs, but it hurt, he hurt, and for a second he laid frozen… Each gasp drawn made his chest ache and itch, the hedgehog rasping out a cough and wincing at the pain going through him at the movement…!

His ears twitched feebly at the “What,” that got whispered out, a bit wayward. “You- Sonic?!”

The mention of his name made Sonic jolt. And that, alongside his twitching ears and his pained wheezes, meant he could move again…!

“Ouch,” was the first coherent thing the speedster managed to groan out.

And then he stifled a startled yelp at the noise that assaulted his ears.

“Sonic!” got cried anew, Sonic wincing in on himself at the echoes the yell of his name elicited. Blearily he shifted- before grimacing at footsteps thundering closer, the noise cutting out into merciful silence right beside his head. Trying to focus amidst the stars dancing in front of his vision Sonic swallowed, staring at the splotch of grey hovering over him. If he squinted, he could make out wide golden eyes… right above tan skin, and underneath that a sea of white…

All very familiar.

“Sonic,” Silver breathed anew, and Sonic dazedly realised that he’d never seen the other this spooked. “What are you- Are you okay?!”

“…Heya, Silver! Long time no see,” Sonic smiled back feebly. It had been a long time since he last met the psychic hedgehog in question, now that he thought about it. Which was pretty hard, actually; so hard he remembered only seconds later Silver had asked him a question he’d better answer, because he was getting stared at like he was a ghost. “Yeah… Yeah! I’m just great,” the speedster added, and even he knew it didn’t sound all that convincing.

Slowly the grey-furred hedgehog sunk onto one knee. “You don’t look like it. How did you even-” followed, almost surprisingly quietly… until Silver’s voice snapped right up into its usual loud self again. “Hey, don’t move! Let me help you.”

With his grimace only growing Sonic shifted anew, trying to sit upright instead of laying on the ground like a wet blanket. “No, no, that’s not needed,” he tried to wave Silver off in the meantime. He would have accentuated his protest with a callous flick of a hand, were it not he was a bit too busy trying to push himself upwards with those. But he had to get up; they were in an Eggman base and that always spelled out danger, even if the man didn’t seem to be around right now. Sonic’s throat and nose did both itch, but that seemed to be more because it was dustier than a desert in here. Which was also strange, but Sonic couldn’t find it in himself to go ponder about that. Right now, he had to get moving.

“Stop that,” Silver repeated, more forcefully. His hand shot forward and his fingers curled over Sonic’s shoulder as Sonic moved and pushed back. But Silver’s grip halted him… But the speedster drew a breath still and reared up in one fell swoop…

Before stars exploded in his vision as a stab of pain rushed through his head at the movement.

The last thing Sonic could notice was Silver gasping in alarm, and his face crashing into something downy and warm and soft and white, before everything turned black.

Chapter Text

A handful of hours earlier in two centuries later, Silver found himself forced to concede that today, by all accounts, was rather off.

It had all started with the wind this morning. Because where usually it just tussled Silver’s quills as the psychic woke up, a gentle breeze of cool caressing his sleep-warm cheeks, now it had knocked him right out of his hammock instead.

Silver hadn’t appreciated waking up through slamming face-first into the grass and dirt. Such he had made very clear to the heavens above, with a lot of yelling and items flying about. But his further morning activities of washing the muck off his general being in Mountain River Zone and taking a few bites of breakfast had then gone by completely uninterrupted again, all things considered, and the wind’s rude actions had been forgiven but not forgotten.

But they had kept disappearing to the back of Silver’s mind more and more the further the day trudged on. Because every time he’d found himself not completely preoccupied with some task, he’d caught himself standing… frozen. Disturbed. With something gnawing at the edge of his thoughts, that he simply could not place. It had started small, as just a speckle of unease that disappeared the moment the psychic took note of it. And yet the further the sun climbed then sunk into the horizon and the more clouds had begun gathering in the heavens, the stronger it had gotten…

“What’s going on today?” Silver had muttered, after finding himself interrupted by incomprehensible concerns for what felt like the hundredth time. The backs of his hands had simmered with unpleasantness too, Silver’s fingers rubbing away on them like mad to make it dissipate. And then he’d had enough of not knowing. The wind had tugged at him again before racing away, and Silver had set off in the direction it indicated. It had made the eerie sensation only stronger.

He should have known both would lead him to an Eggman base.

Warily Silver floated inside through the previously-still-closed door that now hung creaking in what was left of its hinges, eyes flicking about. The corpses of broken-down robots littered the hallways, crackling sparks jumping from torn wires making the psychic’s ears twitch. “Abandoned,” Silver concluded slowly. But still, he grasped some of the robots laying about with his powers to tug them along. He would not be caught off-guard here by any enemy that could be lying in wait.

And the feeling of unease grew only bigger and larger the deeper he descended.

But nothing Silver investigated made it go away. He pushed at robots, opened up paths full of junk, looked over every room and corner and crevice; his hands kept aching and his thoughts kept gnawing. Every failed attempt to calm his worries down led the psychic deeper into the base, his frown only intensifying at all the rubble and broken screens and busted lights flickering about. The further he went, the more broken and ruined everything became. Eventually only the cyan of his powers gave off enough of a glow for Silver to see what destruction had been wrought here.

Endless wreckages, one after the other. And in the furthest reaches of the darkness, a flickering red dot.

Silver froze.

A robot body hurled at it elicited a lot of creaking and slamming, Silver's ammo crumbling apart in full… and the red dot standing strong despite the violence. “…Oh. Just a lightbulb,” the psychic realised, padding a tad closer. A lightbulb specifically at the side of a console with tons of buttons and stuff… and beside it a giant door, that made Silver blink in awe as he studied it. He had to have gone through most of the base already, the hedgehog mused as he laid a hand on the metal, except for this part. And the unease tore up his insides still...

It was as if there was something beyond this door, that called out to him, almost…!

A little grin formed on Silver's face. ‘When in doubt, use psychokinesis’ was a motto that had never, ever failed him before.

“Hah!” the psychic cried out, hand casting out towards the console. A wave of cyan rushed from the mark on his palm and struck it head-on, with Silver’s smirk growing only broader as the flickering red dot went absolutely haywire before turning green. Electronics never liked psychokinesis much, the psychic had long figured out. Considering who Silver’s archnemesis was, that was a huge blessing; considering who that archnemesis’ ancestor who still poisoned the world long after the time he should have died was, even more. And as expected, the door whirred and heaved and creaked open…

The tiniest bit.

“Darn it,” Silver found himself forced to grumble next. Of course: this base had to be almost out of electricity, with only backup generators and stuff keeping it running. But the slit did give Silver room to peer inside, a psychic touch feeling about and finding nothing behind it, and some more prodding and cursing pushing the door open wide enough so a wiry hedgehog could slip through…

Into some strange, cylindrical area. That also had nothing else inside it.

Silver’s ears pressed themselves against his head indignantly.

“Is this your masterpiece, Eggman? Some dumb empty room?!” he yelled out to the ceiling, hands balling into fists and a whip of psychokinesis lashing at nothingness in the air. There was nothing inside: looking around agitatedly only revealed more metal walls and metal flooring and metal ceiling. Was this what his bad feeling wanted him to see? It was still there, gnawing at him! And there was something else too-

Something else.

With widening eyes Silver froze, his powers chiming up in alarm as they rushed through the room. The backs of his hands prickled; his ears swerved around for any sign of life, or just any object or thing or...!

 But the room remained empty as could be. And still, despite that, Silver swallowed as a realisation began to sink in.

There was something- no, someone here.

A conversation mixed with a teasing goodbye mixed with a cry for help, simultaneously.

And it reached out to him.

Silver perked up his ears as far as they could. But nothing got spoken; silence echoed around him still. But what he could hear was something beyond that, somehow…! A plea? A yell? It had to be a voice, or maybe a thought of one, but that meant there was a person…?

“I’ll save you,” Silver whispered.

…But how? Helplessly the hedgehog blinked, before furrowing his brow and raising a hand. Psychokinesis: it was the answer to everything, after all. Silver’s eyes scrunched shut, and with a breath and a gentle push his powers coated the whole room as they searched for where the cry came from. His eyes flicked about, his senses reached out. If he could just grab it, materialise it somehow…!

Not the middle of the room, but a bit off-set towards the wall. Had the someone been moving? It mattered not: the moment Silver’s powers brushed past it, the hedgehog jolted with a gasp. It was there, right there…

His powers focused themselves…!

The sensation of a hand grabbling at his psychokinesis made Silver wince, legs buckling at the force. But with a tightening fist the psychic wrapped his powers deeper, further, more tautly, more strongly. “I got you! Hold on!” he cried out, before giving a tug-!

The fabric of the world rippled.

Tore.

And out came a blast of sound and speed that sent Silver flying immediately.

With a gasp the psychic got slammed back by the shockwave, body crashing into the wall before he could stop himself with his powers and a cry of pain ripped from his lips. But his noise was entirely unmatched by another’s cry in turn, far louder as a terrifying smack of metal being hit reverberated through the room-!

And across from Silver, a form ricocheted off the wall and crashed right onto the ground.

Silver threw a hand in front of his mouth as dust and dirt got flung up around him. Scrunching his eyes to protect them from the assault he stared at where the something laid… It moved, and drew in a wheezing breath, and then followed a far more pained cough…

It looked and sounded almost like…!

“What,” Silver whispered. “You- Sonic?!”

The more the dust settled down again, the more he could make out blue on the person sprawled beside the wall.

And a groaned-out clamour of pain, very much in Sonic’s voice, was all the proof Silver needed.

“Sonic!” he cried out in turn. The heap of hedgehog winced, but Silver paid it no mind as he scrambled to his feet and rushed closer. He slid to a halt beside the speedster, eyes darting madly over his body. Sonic looked hurt…! And green eyes stared back at him, bleary and unfocused. “Sonic,” Silver breathed anew as their gazes met. “What are you- Are you okay?!”

For a second too long, silence followed… but then a most feeble smile got sent his way. “Heya, Silver! Long time no see,” Sonic responded, voice strained. Another silence fell, in which Silver’s concerns increased a thousandfold, though eventually Sonic jolted. “Yeah… Yeah! I’m just great,” got added, in a creaking waver of pitifulness that didn’t sound very great at all.

Most promptly Silver frowned. Did Sonic not hear himself? Why was he smiling, when he was clearly in pain?! “You don’t look like it,” Silver urged him to consider, sinking down on one knee. Sonic needed help, it was obvious, but where had he come from? And what had been that blast? “How did you even-” the psychic began to inquire next, leaning closer… before his brow furrowed as Sonic shifted, torso moving upwards. “Hey, don’t move!” Silver scolded, hands shooting over to stop him. “Let me help you.”

“No, no, that’s not needed,” Sonic protested, undeterred in his attempts to get up. Silver grimaced as the speedster flinched and swayed, arms trembling from where he pushed himself up with his hands…!

“Stop that,” the psychic commanded. The way Sonic swayed and shook, he looked like he was about to collapse…! But as Silver tried to grasp his shoulder to push him down, stop his moving, Sonic bucked only more, and-!

Silver winced at the deep, agonised groan of pain that slipped out of Sonic’s mouth, whatever pale colour that had formed on his cheeks draining away in a second.

And then his eyes rolled backwards and he went limp.

“Watch out!” Silver gasped. Without thinking his powers rushed from his hands, which jolted forward alongside with the cyan to grasp Sonic and break his fall-!

Though, the hedgehog grunted as Sonic’s body crashed against him, and the speedster’s whole dead weight hit Silver right in the chest. “Sonic!” slipped past Silver’s lips anew as he had to refocus all his attention to keeping himself upright. “Hey, don’t faint on me!”

…No response came.

Instead Sonic laid limply against Silver, eyes shut and breaths raspy. “Sonic?” Silver repeated, giving the other a shake. But also that elicited nothing: no laugh, no winks, no teases about how Silver was very dumb to fall for this. Nor any opening of green eyes, even, or any indication Sonic was alright…!

The whole sight of the speedster, so lifeless and so quiet, made a fright Silver could not place coil deep inside his very being.  

“What in the world?” the psychic permitted himself to mumble, grunting as he tried to realign Sonic so Silver could see his face better. A hand pressing against Sonic’s chest made grey-furred shoulders sink in relief at its rising and falling, a heartbeat hammering away underneath…

Alive.

But very much unconscious.

And they were in an Eggman base, which always spelled out danger.

Silver made up his mind in an instant.

“I’ll help you,” the psychic murmured into drooping blue ears. “I’ll take you to my place, it’s safe there. And we can wait until you’re awake again and then get you back to your own era.”

A spark of hope flickered to life inside him as one of Sonic’s ears twitched. With psychokinesis Silver lifted himself to his feet easily, Sonic rising up as well before getting dropped into Silver’s arms and clutched close. It made a sound rise from the speedster, a noise that Silver hoped was inquiring confusion as he rearranged Sonic’s head so it leaned into his shoulder.

“It’s okay. You’ll be okay!” the psychic did his best to smile in turn. If he squinted, he thought he could make out lines of green and white between the slits of Sonic’s eyelids… A good sign, he hoped. And with that he wasted no more time: Silver wrung himself through the entrance anew, Sonic held protectively in his grasp, and the moment they reached the world outside, he blasted right off.

Dark storm clouds had gathered in the heavens during the hours Silver had scoured through Eggman’s base. Had it already been windy the whole day, now branches of trees got pulled to and fro ominously as the sky rumbled. Caringly the psychic pulled Sonic against him more, head rearing up to shield Sonic’s from the first fine droplets of rain as he wrapped them both in a protective bubble of psychokinesis. Though, a curse slipped past Silver’s lips as first fine droplets turned to a world-drowning downpour in seconds, thundering away at his powers. The rumbles above combined into a bang that made the world shake, lightning flashed on the horizon, and the wind danced around him madly as Silver raced towards Mountain River Zone and darted past its loops and corkscrews until finally he’d made his way home.

All the while Sonic laid in his arms, mercifully occasionally stirring or one eye opening before it fell shut again and he huddled closer into Silver’s hold. “We’re here,” Silver told him, though no reaction followed still as the psychic crouched underneath the bramble hedges that enshrined one side of his hideout. Sharply he listened for any signs of a trap: he wouldn’t put it past any enemies to use the weather to try and get the jump on him. But as usual, he picked up nothing, and his hideout was quiet like every other day as he darted inside. “Let’s get him to bed,” the psychic piped up to the wind… before a worrying thought struck. It had been raining here too: thick droplets of water got swept off the trees’ leaves and struck Silver’s shield in a relentless torrent. Sleeping in a hammock was fine when it was dry out, but now…

But that was nothing Silver was not used to. Easily he lifted Sonic into the air with his psychokinesis, making sure the speedster was kept enshrouded fully in cyan so he wouldn’t get wet. Around him Silver raced through his hideout to gather supplies: with some help from the wind and his powers the psychic tied the black tarp he’d salvaged from the garbage dump over the two trees the hammock hung between to block the rain out. Though Silver’s hideout was plenty sheltered underneath and amidst its flora, he’d woken up soaked one too many times himself to risk Sonic ending up all soggy too. A similar tarp got put over the hammock itself; the fabric had been fully sodden already. And with a towel that Silver retrieved from his watertight bags of supplies put down over the crinkling material, Sonic could sleep comfortably, the psychic hoped.

The whole time he was busy, the speedster’s quiet persisted still. “Here we go,” Silver told him as he placed the other on his fortified hammock. Though, Sonic remained unmoving, even as Silver swallowed and hesitated before reaching out and curling his fingers around a peach wrist slowly…

But a strong heartbeat thrummed through; definitely stronger than it had been in the base. “Thank goodness,” Silver hummed to himself, frowning as the wind nudged him. “You think he’ll be okay?

His companion made the branches above twirl, which Silver took as a yes. “It’s getting cold,” he added next, rubbing over his shoulders at the chill the wind’s gales carried. “And I only have one blanket… Oh well.”

From another of his watertight bags Silver dug out the crumpled lap of fabric. The moment it got laid over him Sonic’s face softened… He looked cute like that, Silver figured with a fond snort. Snugly he tucked the other in from shoes to shoulders, which earned him a happy little hum and an inquiring sniffle of the black nose peeking out just above the rim of the cocoon. Also that was endearing, and a noise of relief slipped past Silver’s own lips. “I’ll stay up and keep watch,” he murmured into a blue-furred ear. It gave another twitch, which Silver gladly used to bolster his courage more. Sonic would be okay. Sonic was hardy and strong, everyone always said so. He was really just sleeping.

Turning around and floating towards the trunk of one of the trees, Silver grunted as he flopped onto the ground. He could see Sonic on one side and the brambles that covered his hideout on the other like this, and with a stifled yawn the psychic used his powers to grab a bottle of water and a snack from his supplies next. It’d be a long night, but he could manage! He could even stay dry here, at the very edge of the tarp. “Wake me up if I doze off,” he commanded the wind… that did not jostle his quills like usual this time, and instead hung in the distance as if it heavily disagreed with these choices. He didn’t need sleep, Silver huffed at it. He’d just stay awake by himself then, if the wind refused to help.

Sonic’s little snores filled the air around him as the psychic rested and stared into nothing, though his noiseless sitting went unmatched by the immediate racing of his thoughts. Sonic of all people was not someone he’d ever expect to see, here in the present instead of the past… and yet it had to be him, surely. But how? And why? What had he been doing in that Eggman base?

Silver found no answers to any of his questions. And the more he wracked his mind, the more his head flopped to a shoulder before it jolted up by reflex, and the more he had to stubbornly keep forcing his eyes open despite the soothing pitter-patter of the rain on the tarp. But he would not, could not fall asleep. He could sleep after all his questions had gotten answered in the morning. He’d almost made it, the sky was lightening up more and more…!

The wind only came back to stroke his quills when disjointed thoughts and blackness had long overtaken Silver’s mind, and despite all his fighting, its gentle caress proved enough for Silver to slip into sleep as well.

Chapter Text

Sonic awoke to the sight of something long and black blocking out whatever was above.

Strange, his sleep-addled brain mused as he groaned and stirred. That was absolutely not what he’d fallen asleep to… but what he had fallen asleep to, the speedster could not recall so clearly either. Blurs of colour and a sensation of endless stretching and weightlessness, chaos coiling all about… Sonic’s quills prickled with unease the more the memories took shape. Eggman had really got him this time.

But amidst all that there’d most certainly been… gold. Soothing gold, its warmth a stark contrast to the incomprehensibility of the greys and blacks and reds. And downy white: the warmest and snuggest and downiest of white, though Sonic drew a blank on how he knew that so certainly. And besides the gold and white, there had been a far softer and gentler grey than the harsh colours of everything else. And cyan, somewhere in the distance yet everywhere at the same time.

But that white Sonic could recall with the most clarity. He had tried to sit up and everything had turned to black, but in the split second before that he’d been caught by…!

Hmm.

The more Sonic blinked open his eyes, the more a dull thumping ache in his head made its presence known, and the speedster grimaced as his hand shot up to clasp it. “Urgh,” slipped past his lips, fingers rubbing circles into his skull until his vision had sharpened. He laid on a… hammock, it seemed, swinging to and fro in a gentle breeze while tucked under a blanket pulled up all the way to his nose. And above him, the blackness was a sheet of tarp, that laid drawn over some branches of two trees.

“Huh,” the speedster allowed himself to muse. All the while, the memories of gold and white sharpened in his mind, and with them came fragments from a voice that wasn’t exactly familiar. At least, not as familiar as the grey and gold and cyan and white.

Sonic had never heard Silver talk so softly, after all.

Silver. Someone Sonic didn’t know all that well, all things considered. Pensively the speedster let the wind swing him about on the hammock, memories of Silver drifting along with the motion. The two of them had met twice before: once on that island that had appeared out of nowhere in the ocean and had disappeared again together with that enigmatic hedgehog, and once on another where a bunch of Chao had been going missing. And Sonic wouldn’t describe those times as particularly nice to have been talking to Silver…

Because he yelled a lot, and listened quite an opposite amount, and Sonic would be lying if he said it hadn’t annoyed him eventually.

But none of that matched the shock on Silver’s face when Sonic had laid his eyes on him, back in Eggman’s base. Or the way he’d come running when the speedster had laid crumbled onto the ground. Or him reaching out to stop Sonic from falling as his consciousness left him; the last thing the speedster’s mind could recall with any clarity. The more Sonic thought about it, the more the memories came seeping back: Silver’s wide eyes, how he’d crouched beside Sonic, how he’d urged Sonic to take it easy, how he’d offered his help, how he’d gasped and shot over when Sonic had collapsed.

That was it, Sonic realised with a jolt. That white that currently formed the centrepiece of his thoughts had been the white of Silver’s mane.

…And he’d just crashed face-first into said mane while fainting after Eggman sent him on an impromptu trip into the timestream to kill him that Silver had somehow managed to tug him out of.

Sonic snorted at the unexpected silliness of the situation.

But that had to mean Silver was around somewhere, the speedster figured amidst his amusement. With his fingers rubbing away at his aching head Sonic tugged the blanket off and pushed himself into a sitting position. What was it that Espio had said about Silver again? He and Sonic had been on the same boat back to the mainland after that whole thing with the Ifrit, and Sonic had gladly grabbed the opportunity to grill Espio about his sudden ring theft. Not that that had resulted in much: some “It was most necessary and I apologise,” was approximately what Sonic had gotten out of him. But in that way, the conversation had shifted to Silver next. Who was that hedgehog, Sonic had asked, and Espio had smiled. “He’s tremendously brave, and kind once you get to know him. He’s got a heart of gold.”

Kind, Sonic pondered. Heart of gold… Well, Silver had somehow found his way into the belly of an Eggman base and gotten Sonic out of a predicament he’d have struggled to escape from otherwise. And clearly he also had given Sonic his own bed and taken the ground to sleep in turn, because as the speedster peeked into the place he’d been taken to, the sight of a bundle of grey laying slumped between the roots of one of the trees caught his attention immediately.

“Heh. Hey, Silver?” Sonic called out in a whisper. Logic dictated this was the psychic’s place of residence… though Sonic had to admit he had no idea where that was located. He’d never come across it before in any of his world-traversing adventures.

But Silver did not stir even as Sonic dangled his legs over the rim of the hammock and dropped himself to the ground, with only one ear shooting right up as Sonic tiptoed closer. A deep frown marred his face, that Sonic had to stifle a snort at. Just how serious were Silver’s dreams if he looked like this while sleeping? “It’s just me,” the speedster soothed, until the ear had relaxed again and merely flicked in the wind. The cool gale picked up the longer Sonic stood studying the other hedgehog, tussling both their furs and quills, and the speedster gave it a curious look. It felt familiar, somehow… but Sonic couldn’t place it otherwise, and thus he returned his attention to the sleeping psychic.

Poor Silver, Sonic mused. Dew and droplets clung to the grass underfoot, that the bright but feeble morning sunlight had not yet made evaporate. Also Silver was looking a bit damp. Nor could it be comfortable to lay crumpled between the roots of the trees like that, with his back all crooked in their embrace and his head awkwardly leaning against his chest and shoulder. As if it had just collapsed down as sleep claimed him. Had Silver been sitting here for long?

Whatever the case, Sonic pondered, waking the psychic up right now would absolutely be a crime. If Silver was still asleep, he needed the rest. Thus Sonic silently padded away to study Silver’s living space more closely, fingers trailing over the massive stones of the walls that marked most of the borders of the hideout. His pal had amassed quite a nice spot, the speedster conceded easily. Flowers and plants coated one side of it, a couple of big bags sat haphazardly stacked in another corner, the remnants of a campfire could be seen in the grass as well… And between the large crumbling brick barriers and overgrown hedgerows that encased this spot, surely nobody would find Silver here unless they knew were to look. Though, a city could not be far away either, considering Sonic’s sharp hearing could pick out distant noises of traffic and people carried over in the wind. Curiously he snuck over to a slight crack in one of the walls, peering through…

Sonic was no stranger to beautiful scenes, but this one made his eyes widen.

White, and green, and grandiose, the city laid stretched out through what Sonic figured was a valley, considering he looked down on it from Silver’s hideout… yet the buildings stretched up to the blue heavens so high their tops blurred into the sky completely. If possible, the city spread even wider still on the ground, with roads and endless skyscrapers sprawling from one side to the other and whisps of mist glittering in the sunbeams. Sonic’s nose could sniff out a whiff of salt on the breeze too, and the speedster hummed curiously as he got struck by the realisation that those weren’t clouds that curled around the city’s edges… It was the ocean, its waves lapping at the city’s outer borders.

“Whoa,” Sonic concluded succinctly. In the light of the sun, everything glowed and shone, and the speedster could only marvel.

…Even if he’d never seen this entire city before.

No, he really had not, Sonic realised with a jolt. But maybe he just didn’t know all the cities the world had to offer… unlikely as that thought was.

So then where had he ended up?

Pensively Sonic turned around to study Silver’s hideout some more. The idea he’d never come across this place made more sense, at least: it looked pretty sheltered on all sides, what with the stone walls and massive bushes. Nor would it be easy to spot from the air, considering the two trees whose blossom-filled branches made the sky into a gorgeous mosaic of blue patches of heaven intermixed with pink-and-white flowers. Cherry blossoms, Sonic figured from the ample gorgeous rosy blooms swaying in the wind. Drawing a deep breath of the spring air and smiling the speedster trailed his eyes around Silver’s little spot once again; it smelled nice!

…Even if his nose itched immediately after, Sonic’s eyes widening as a tickle went right through it.

“Ah... Achoo!” followed. “Ugh.”

With a grumble Sonic rubbed at his face. The culprit – a cluster of daisies – got found easily enough as Sonic’s eyetrailing turned to glaring, the little white flowers speckled throughout the grass-

All the way up to the roots of the tree, where Silver sat catapulted upright with wide eyes.

“…Oops. Mornin’!” Sonic was the first to pipe up. “Sorry for waking you.”

For a second or two, Silver just stared… before wide eyes scrunched themselves shut again and the psychic yawned, sharp fangs gleaming in the sun. Some huffed groaning noise followed as the other flopped himself over on one side next. “‘s Okay,” Sonic could approximately pick out from whatever it was Silver mumbled, the speedster needing to swallow down a laugh.

“Not a morning person?”

That did not get answered, the bundle of grey fur and quills rhythmically rising and falling anew like Silver had too when Sonic had woken up. He’d be best off with not bothering his pal anymore, Sonic figured. He did not know the psychic well, but Silver’s easily-triggered temper was not unfamiliar to anyone who’d talked to him on either island where he’d adventured before.

Thus, Sonic noiselessly turned back to the crack in the wall, settling against it to study the city some more as he basked in the beams of light that the trees scattered about. Gorgeous… With the wind trailing through his fur and the clouds lazily rolling by, Sonic had ample time to look the scene over and mull about where it could be located. Though, his ears perked up at some shuffles and fusses that resounded behind him, after a few minutes. “What are you doing?” a grumpily quiet voice that sounded quite adorable in its sleepiness rose up, Sonic chuckling.

“You’ve got quite the view here! Is that city built on the water?”

“In part,” he could discern amidst a second huge yawn. “It used to be jus’ an island, but they ran outta space. So they built on ‘n underneath the water next.”

“Underneath?” Sonic echoed, face pressed right into the crack to see more. “As in, on the ocean floor?”

“Hmhm. You can walk aroun’ there. Lots of glass tubes ‘n stuff.”

Some rustles followed, and Sonic had to suppress a full huff of laughter at the incredibly-scruffy-looking Silver that stumbled over to stand by Sonic’s side. Another huge yawn followed, as did a bleary shake of Silver’s head. “It’s pretty cool. The sun makes the water shine all prettily,” the psychic explained, rubbing at his eyes. Still half asleep, Sonic easily concluded, but a cyan-coated hand gestured vaguely towards the sight all the same. “‘n You see that building with the rounded roof over there? It’s a library tha’s also a botanical garden.”

Sonic squinted until he found something that fitted that description. “It looks gorgeous. Do you go there often?”

“Yeah. It’s very peaceful,” the speedster believed Silver said amidst a fourth yawn, that seemed to come from the tips of Silver’s toes, extensive as it was. With a chuckle Sonic gave Silver a little nudge with his elbow. He’d never seen this entire city before, but there were more pressing matters to discuss. He could locate himself and find out how to go home later.

“You’re looking like you got put through the wringer there, pal. Did you sleep badly?”

“Not looking as bad as you,” the contrarian response got huffed back…

Before Silver froze, eyes widening, and Sonic got regarded as if it was the first time he was actually seen by the psychic.

Considering the huge bags under Silver’s eyes, that probably was the case.

“Wait a second,” Silver added a whole lot more suspiciously.

“Heya,” Sonic grinned, raising a thumb. He’d probably not made much sense last evening himself, after all. “Long time no see, Silver!”

Golden eyes blinked at that greeting, and blinked again…

Before they narrowed, burning a hole right through Sonic in an instant. “What are you doing?!” the psychic heatedly spat out, cyan whirling to life all around him. “You shouldn’t be up! You’re injured!”

Sonic couldn’t hide a jolt at the heated tone of voice getting sent his way so suddenly. “Hey- I’m fine!” he protested as Silver scowled at him. “My head’s already hurting a lot less than when I-”

“Your head’s hurting?! Then you need to take it easy even more!” the psychic interrupted, turning around and marching over to those bags stacked in a corner of the hideout. They got rummaged through with what Sonic could best describe as frenzied worrying intermixed with disdained anger, before Silver turned around with a rag and a bottle. Some water from the latter got haphazardly flung on the former, and Sonic squinted his eyes as the rag plapped him right in the face next.

“Silver, really. I’m fine,” he sighed out, tugging it up so it laid better on the aching spot on his skull.

A harrumph followed as Silver leaned closer as well, and a cool touch of psychokinesis straightened the fabric out some more… altogether gently, actually. “You got flung two centuries forward in time before smashing face-first into a wall,” the psychic continued in his peeved protest. “If there’s anyone who really needs to take it easy and who is really not fine, it’s you.”

Sonic blinked, slowly.

“Uh. Come again?” he inquired.

“The wall,” Silver repeated impatiently. “You just said your head’s hurting.”

“No, before that.”

Because surely Sonic had misheard that. Or just misunderstood what Silver meant, because that wasn’t impossible either with the psychic’s yell-filled forms of communicating.

But Silver raised an eyebrow. “The two centuries forward in time?”

“Yeah… Yeah.” Cogs turned in Sonic’s head as the sentence registered… but the longer he stood thinking, the more the realisation took shape. Eggman had been talking about trapping Sonic in the dimension of time… And a whole city that looked so massive but that Sonic had never seen before…!

“I’m in the future?” the speedster breathed.

Silver’s head tipped to the side. “Yeah? Obviously, since I didn’t travel to the past.”

Sonic’s eyes shot right back to the other. “You’re from the future?!”

He almost had to laugh at the look of confusion that formed on Silver’s face. It definitely made for a far cuter appearance than his endless glowering. “Obviously,” the psychic repeated. “I thought you knew that?”

Sonic blinked again, slowly. Then once more but quickly, because a snort slipped past his lips before he could help it, followed by a full laugh. “Silver, I can’t know any of that if you don’t tell me!” he explained to the incredulously-frowning psychic. “I had no idea!”

Had Silver’s eyes narrowed into an infinitely more peeved leer the moment Sonic started laughing, they did clear up with the explanation that followed. “…Hm. I guess I haven’t ever told you, have I?” Silver hummed back, rubbing his chin. “I just… figured you knew. Since Onyx Island came from the future too and all.”

“Is that why it disappeared again? It’s back in this era?”

“Yep. Safe and sound.”

Deciding against telling Silver he’d also not known Onyx Island had come from the future Sonic shook his head fondly, clutching the rag so it didn’t fall off. “What a way to find out,” he settled on, shooting Silver a grin as he suavely leant against the wall. It got met with… a blank stare, before Silver shrugged and turned back to his collection of bags. A metal mug got tugged out of one also, floating in the air for a second… altogether shakily, and Sonic frowned in concern as Silver sighed and grabbed it. Perhaps the psychic should be worried about himself more, the speedster figured, but he also figured he had best not say that.

“How did you even get here? You seemed to be in a lotta trouble in that base,” the psychic inquired in the meantime, the metal mug filled with water from the bottle before it got handed over to Sonic. His mouth did feel ickily dry, the speedster realised, and thus he gladly grabbed it with a word of thanks. Time travel made you thirsty, apparently-

Time travel.

The mug jolted to a halt halfway to Sonic’s mouth. “Drat.”

Silver froze. “Something wrong? You look worried.”

“I am. Because Eggman’s plan worked, and that’s always a bad sign.”

“Eggman did this?” Silver repeated, fur spiking right up. “What happened?”

Inbetween sips of water Sonic told him: how he’d been infiltrating a base because of Eggman’s increased activities, how suspiciously smoothly it had gone, how he’d been trapped in that metal room. How Eggman had gloated, how Sonic had burst into a Super Peel Out, how he had stilled where the world had moved endlessly… “You know, if it hadn’t been for you, I’m not so sure how I’d have gotten out,” he concluded his story, a smile forming onto his face. Even if Silver was his usual grumpy self still, he had bailed Sonic out of a boatload of trouble, and clearly was trying his hardest to be a good caretaker on top. The least Sonic could do was express his gratitude. “So thanks, Silver. Really.”

Golden eyes stared. “That- You don’t need to thank me,” the protest came, after a few seconds of stunned silence. “Anyone would have helped you, surely!”

“But you’re the one who did. And I’m grateful for that,” Sonic remarked back.

Some mumble was the response he got, Silver turning around. Sonic couldn’t tear his eyes away from the other hedgehog; he never thought the loud-mouthed psychic would be shy about getting praised for something. Pressing a hand onto the rag so it wouldn’t fall off Sonic pushed himself away from the wall and followed. Silver settled against another in the beams of the morning sun, and Sonic gladly sunk down beside him. Its stones had gotten heated up already, their warmth seeping into Sonic’s back and making him sigh in relaxation. Although… “You look a bit damp,” he brought up, scrutinising Silver.

The psychic shrugged back. “It rained last night. But I put the tarp up, so you shouldn’t have gotten wet yourself.”

“Nope! Dry as a desert. Thanks for that too,” Sonic agreed, with something akin to a ‘You’re welcome,’ getting mumbled back. Leaning his head against the stones the speedster drew a breath of the fresh air, letting it all sink in. The future…

And Silver, who sat in the sunbeams with that familiar look of deathly seriousness on his face. If he wasn’t so liable to flinging people into the stratosphere should they displease him, Sonic would have snorted at the discrepancy.

A silence unfolded between them, filled with the chirps of birds and the rustles of the trees’ branches in the wind. “We need to get you back,” Silver was the first to break it, studying Sonic from the corner of his eyes. “The past is gonna be in disarray if you’re not there. Especially if Eggman’s up to something.”

“I don’t think it’ll be that bad,” Sonic soothed him. “I’ve disappeared before to places, sometimes for weeks on end. I’m not even sure if Tails knew I was going to Eggman’s base in the first place. And there’s many more people who fight Eggman than just me. It’ll be fine, Silver.”

“It’s not fine. What if Eggman is planning something right now, with you out of the way? Your friends aren’t you. Everything could be in danger there, and then the future is in danger as well!”

“Take it easy,” the speedster responded at the spine-spiking that accompanied every word spoken, until Silver looked as big as a dandelion full of seeds. In a way cute, in a way likely to make Sonic end up with either getting yelled at or just flung against a wall, and neither would do when Sonic’s head had just been put through all that. “I see what you mean,” the speedster thus moved the conversation to instead, “but how do you suggest I get home?”

Silver’s ears shot up, his face becoming even more serious.

“Don’t worry,” followed, the other leaning closer as Sonic listened sharply as well. “I know exactly how to get you back.”

Chapter Text

Besides the grandiose city and Silver’s cosy hideout, the rest of the area he lived in was pretty neat as well.

Sonic whistled as he padded over a dirt path underneath sparsed-out trees, breathing the fresh air of the mountains that formed the – apparently aptly-named – Mountain River Zone. Luckily Silver had been open to the idea to go walk for a bit, Sonic not wanting to stay trapped in his little hideaway and subject himself to endless fussing. Plus, a place like the future simply had to be explored! Sonic’s legs were itching to blast off and see what it had to offer. With the sounds of water running in the distance, birds chirping their morning greetings, and the sun dappling through the tree branches with their spring blooms, there were worse times to have ended up temporarily stranded in the future, Sonic smiled as he pondered over what Silver had been telling him throughout their exploring.  

“The Emeralds,” he repeated, rubbing his chin. “Heh… Of course.”

“With two of them and two people, you can activate Chaos Control and time-travel to wherever you want,” Silver nodded. “And in my experience, it’s nothing like what happened to you. But don’t ask me how that works.”

“Eggman said something about not having a destination set, or whatever.” More dourly Sonic pursed his lips: the fact Eggman managed to even achieve this in the first place made a blow to his pride. But on the other hand, it had led Sonic to a friend, and he always embraced that too. Pausing by a large blueberry bush Sonic plucked one off the branches, popping it into his mouth with a hum and beaming at the friend in question. “Hmm, tasty!”

“Sonic, focus,” said friend in question immediately scolded, a second blueberry that Sonic held out to Silver getting scorched in a look of unamusement. “The good news is, it works. I’ve Chaos Controlled to the past with no negative effects, and back again.” And then Silver’s face fell into a deep frown, as Sonic had entirely expected. It could never just be easy, though Sonic would have despised it if it was. “The bad news is, I don’t know where the Emeralds are,” got added, while Sonic bit into the rejected piece of fruit next. “When I went to the past with the whole Ifrit debacle, they’d already been gathered, and they’ve been sent on their way again afterwards. And since there hasn’t been anything going wrong here that warrants me going to the past again, I haven’t been looking for any.”

“That makes sense. I don’t really collect the Emeralds either if there’s no need for them,” Sonic soothed. Silver’s face had contorted in a way it made him look like he felt guilty for not having any Emeralds… though no apology slipped past his lips. Still, Sonic shot him an encouraging wink. “And of course it’s not gonna be simple, but that’s part of the fun! And we can hang out more! It’s gonna be a great time together, I’m sure.”

As Sonic spoke, Silver…

Froze.

And then something darkened on his face.

Stiffly the hedgehog turned away from the blueberry bush, Sonic staring at his retreating form. Had he said something wrong? “Everything okay?” he inquired, rushing after his pal. The psychic halted at the edge of the forest, ears perked and eyes flicking about, before his shoulders slouched and he stepped into a sunlight-filled meadow.

Some mutters Sonic could not make out followed, though Silver rubbed at his eyes most insistently too. “No… It’s fine. Whatever.”

Sonic knew better than to prod, and thus he just nodded. Perhaps Silver was simply tired, considering how rumpled he looked. Hopefully some fresh air would help with that. “It’s shaping up to be a beautiful day,” Sonic settled on commenting, gesturing to the sky above. “Look how bright it is up there!”

“It’s a lovely blue,” Silver agreed, pacing further into the meadow. Hundreds of flowers and grasses spread out through the field, all the way up to a large river that curled through a valley far in the distance. Sonic whistled anew, head raised up high as he stepped after Silver into the field.

Amidst dodging flowers and grasses lurking with the evil presence of hay fever-activating pollen Sonic found himself a mite preoccupied; a long silence stretched out between the two hedgehogs. It gave Sonic ample time to muse and ponder. Maybe Silver had hoped it would be simple so Sonic could return home quickly, but… why? With how concerned the psychic had been for Sonic’s health, Sonic wouldn’t say Silver wanted him gone.

But Sonic really didn’t know Silver well enough either to be able to tell, that he had to concede readily after.

“Hey,” he piped up, skedaddling ahead to catch up with his pal. “Thanks for looking after me. I appreciate it.”

Golden eyes regarded him strangely. “I told you, you don’t need to thank me.”

“I want to, though. And you’re showing me around all these gorgeous places. That city you live close to is absolutely stunning as well,” Sonic rambled out before Silver could protest more. At least that last bit made the psychic nod, though with that same deathly seriousness still.

“It is. I always found it pretty special that it’s partially built on the ocean floor. The past has nothing like that?”

“Perhaps in some places, but none that I know. And I’ve seen many cities.” And Sonic could compare how they’d all grown and changed over two centuries, now! “Hey, you should come visit the past too, after we’re done sightseeing in the future!” the speedster added, shooting Silver a smile. “Then you can see how everything used to be.”

…That strange look crossed Silver’s face anew.

“I don’t follow,” got hummed back slowly.

“Well, you’ve only been in the past twice, right? If you visit again, you can see what everything grew from. And here in the future, I can see what everything has become! Isn’t that amazing?”

But Silver frowned only more. “I guess, but… Don’t you need to go back to the past? Right now?”

Huh, Sonic mused. Right now… Sure, he’d been thinking soon, or at least sometime, but ‘right now’ was quite quick indeed. “I’d actually been planning on, you know, exploring around and seeing just how beautiful everything is,” he responded honestly. “Right now isn’t going to work anyway, since we don’t have any Emeralds. I figured we would go and travel all over the place and snatch any Emeralds we come across, and then when we’ve seen enough, I go back home.”

“…And when will you have had enough?”

“No idea! That’s the beauty and the fun of exploring,” Sonic responded with a chuckle.

Said chuckle echoed into nothingness as Silver remained staring at him altogether frostily. 

“So you don’t want to go home…?” eventually followed, half hesitantly and half disbelievingly. “Won’t your friends be worried about you?”

“Ah.” Maybe that was the problem, Sonic figured. Silver knew how close he was with Tails, at least, and probably a lot of other people as well. “Don’t get me wrong, I do want to go home! And I will, as soon as I can. But my friends will be fine, Silver. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve disappeared on them ‘cause I got sucked into an adventure,” he did his best to assure, with fond memories of other worlds taking shape in his mind and a deep breath of the wind dancing around just barely revealing the scents of old books and ink and stardust and oceans. “But how many people will ever get the chance to see what the future is going to look like? I’d love to take it.”

More quietly Silver rubbed his chin. “Not many, I guess… That is true.”

“And everything here looks so gorgeous, and I’ve only seen one city and one Zone so far. I’d love to see more of it!”

“Oh. I suppose things are very pretty here,” Silver nodded. Eagerly Sonic grinned back, the psychic’s lips pursing together. Blue-furred ears waited for more confirmation, for an offer to go together, for Silver to show him around to visit all the best places and the people of the future.

None of that came.

Instead Silver shrugged, and the other turned around. “Well, you gotta do what makes you happy,” got huffed out over a grey-furred shoulder. “If that’s exploring, and having fun, I won’t stop you.”

An awkward silence followed. Sonic found himself a bit at a loss for words, and Silver’s gaze was fixed on the distance. “Would you… like to come along?” the speedster broke it first. With a warm smile blossoming on his face he held out his hand, golden eyes peeking over at it. It didn’t seem like Silver’s hideout got occupied by many people other than the psychic himself, considering how tiny it was… Maybe he’d like having a companion around? And then Sonic could get to know him better too. “You can show me all the places you like, and we can meet the people you know!” Sonic added, bouncing lightly on his feet. “It will be fun!”

That indescribable look on Silver’s face rushed right back.

“No thanks,” the curt response came.

“…No?” Sonic repeated, which got answered by a firm shake of Silver’s head.

“I’m good.”

Something in the tone of his voice gave Sonic pause. Silver’s shoulders hunched in on themselves entirely, glumness on his face and body stiff…

Really not the pose of someone eager to join. Or even that of someone who wanted to, but didn’t know how to ask.

Instead Silver looked as annoyed as could be.

And Sonic had no idea why exactly.

“Well… Alright then. Your choice, of course. But let me know if you change your mind,” Sonic told his pal, scrutinising him closely as he pondered.

There was more going on here than Silver not just wanting to go on an adventure.

But the grey hedgehog merely nodded, hissing as the winds picked up and jostled his quills, and Sonic knew better than to prod. Prodding Silver for details so far had always had explosive results, and he wasn’t about to get teleported right into the river or something. Ending up in a carnival on Onyx Island had been disorienting enough already. As it stood Sonic’s final look of inquiry got met with a shrug and a scowl, and that was that.

The rest of their trek around got spent in complete silence.

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

“See you around,” Sonic had said, and: “I’ll come back here when I’ve found the first Emerald. I hope that’ll be before night falls.”

Silver had nodded and told Sonic what regions were safe and where he had to be careful, and he’d almost say he’d been listened to. But with Sonic, you never knew, the psychic grumbled to himself.

Fun.

Silver’s mood tanked whenever that word crossed his mind again.

Sonic had long blasted off into the direction Silver had pointed out, and the psychic had turned around to make his way back to his hideout, pushing his way through the small hole in the massive bramble thicket that enshrined one side of his hideaway. Returning home had been nice, grey-furred ears not detecting any danger as he’d halted underneath the thorns and listened sharply. Even if he’d never been attacked in his hideout, it never hurt to check either, but it had been quiet as always as Silver had trudged over to his hammock with the thought he could get some more shuteye.

Of course, tiredness had neglected to come to him completely.

Pensively Silver swung on the coarse fabric, eyes on the sky that dappled through the leaves on the trees. The sun had been making her journey from east to west unbothered as always, and the clouds stretched themselves out in feather-like whisps, as if they’d been stapled to the blue canvas.

Blue.

Quite like Sonic.

“Do you think he’s gonna be okay?” Silver asked it, and the trees and the wind and nobody in particular all the same. “I don’t think things are so different here than his own era, but still… Sonic’s a troublemaker.”

Above him, the branches rustled. “So who knows what he’s getting himself into now? Other than having fun, of course,” the psychic mulled further, and with every second spent thinking he scowled only more.

How dared Sonic?

How dared he refuse to take things seriously like that? How dared he not honour his responsibility to keep the world safe? How dared the idea of having fun while racing like an idiot through Zones in the future weigh so much more heavily for him than trying to go back to the past? “He got flung into the timestream, hurt himself, is not looking after anyone in his era like he should because he’s stuck here, and all he can think of is having fun,” Silver succinctly summarised the conversation he and Sonic had had to the wind. “He wants to go explore and see all around and he says it’s gonna be fun. Instead of, you know, making sure he can get home. He needs those Emeralds, and you don’t get Emeralds through being silly.”

But had Silver wanted to lace his words with scorn, he couldn’t stop a deep frown from forming on his face also. Sonic had seemed plenty confident about his abilities to manage himself, and he’d promised Silver to come for another visit when having gathered the first Emerald, and yet…

Eggman Nega’s robots did plague the lands. Not to mention the unwanted relics Eggman’s various exploits had left behind: death traps galore littered the world still, no matter how many Silver had been cleaning up over the months. Evil geniuses aside, general technology used by citizens was a lot more advanced too than all the primitive little gadgets the past contained. And even if Sonic was plenty brave, surely it would be unsettling to be thrown into a whole new world and not even have the person responsible for it there to chase down? Onyx Island at least had been familiar enough terrain, and the second time Silver had found Espio to help him out. But Sonic was entirely on his own in this era.

The more he mulled, the more Silver’s ears flattened against his head. Sonic had made his way through both islands as well, the second time with that fox cub but the first time alone… though Silver had no idea how Sonic had even managed that. If he’d been just as goofy there as he had acted today, Silver honestly would have expected him to still be in Forest Falls Zone, frolicking in a waterfall or something. In that regard, the stories of his heroism didn’t really fit all that the psychic had seen of Sonic so far.

It could only make him wonder more…

“And what if something were to happen to him? I don’t want that,” the thought crossed Silver’s mind before he could stop it, and thus getting extensively pondered over next as Silver’s unease grew and grew. “He could get hurt again. He could die!”

The wind fluttered around him as if it were shaking with laughter.

With a grumble Silver stabilised his hammock. “Don’t you dare knock me off again,” he spat back, swatting at his fleet-footed assailant as he pushed himself into sitting on the hammock’s edge with a sinking heart. Because even if he was worried, what was the use of pondering this all over? “But obviously Sonic’s not gonna want me to come along,” the psychic added, eyes narrowing and fur raising as the memories of multiple conversations, or rather arguments, he and Sonic had had stirred themselves again. The speedster had been most clear all the times they had met before…

The wind rustled as Silver growled lowly. “I mean, he doesn’t even like me. We’re not friends.”

Annoyance sparked up in Silver all over again as his mind ambled past the multiple memories that proved those words to be true. He got on Sonic’s nerves, the speedster had said so point-blank. Not that the feeling hadn’t been mutual, but still. And Sonic had said he never changed, too… “Sorry for trying to make sure the world doesn’t end while you’re just goofing around,” Silver grumbled, arms crossing and an irked kick of his feet into the air underneath his hammock making it jolt.

…But a more wary frown formed on Silver’s face, too.

Because Sonic not liking him… didn’t at all fit the hand held out to him so kindly, or the offer for a joint adventure.

Silver’s ears hadn’t deceived him. Sonic had offered that, no way around it. And he had smiled with such warmth, too. Like he’d really wanted Silver to come along, for whatever reason. The more Silver thought it over, the less sense it made. Weren’t he and Sonic on poor terms with each other? Or at least their acquaintanceship wasn’t friendly to the point they’d just go hang out together like that? Maybe? But then why would Sonic offer Silver to come join him?

None of it checked out.

“I don’t get it,” Silver concluded to the wind, who nuzzled over his quills soothingly. “And it doesn’t matter anyway. I’ve got things to do myself. I need to keep this place safe. I gotta keep making sure that Eggman Nega’s not come back. Or that his robots are not causing mayhem still, or Eggman’s. There’s so many bases and junk left of him that I need to dispose of so nobody gets hurt. And I need to be in the city too, to help with the mail and stuff. And right here at home to care for my plants. And go to the Chao to hang out with them. And just… keep protecting everyone and everything. None of that is the fun Sonic wants to have, surely.”

The wind made a jump as if it shrugged, and Silver copied the movement as his grumbles grew only more. “Fun. He’s stranded here in his future and all he can think about is having fun? Running around like mad and platforming and what-have-you? Adventures aren’t supposed to be fun.”

The branches of the trees drooped as the wind tugged at them, Silver rolling his eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic. Save that for when Sonic has died because he was too busy having fun to pay attention to what he’s doing.”

But as he said that… cold dread washed over him. And even as he spiked up his quills to catch more of the sunlight, it refused to dissipate. “And still… I don’t want anything to happen to him. He’s already been hurt- He looked so small,” the psychic sighed, lips pressing together at the memory of how limp and lifeless Sonic had been when Silver had bailed them out of that Eggman base. At least he seemed as full of life as usual again, but Silver hadn’t forgotten how Sonic had said he probably wouldn’t have escaped otherwise.

If the speedster got into such a situation again…!

“I don’t want him to get hurt even more. He’s in my era, so it’s my responsibility to take care of him too. Isn’t it?” Silver inquired quietly-

Before an indignant yelp slipped past his lips as the wind struck him right in his back.

“What?!” Silver yelled at it, barely able to activate his powers in time to stop himself from eating grass again in just over twenty-four hours. “What, should I just go after him and tell him that I don’t want him to die?!”

The trees rustled in a tender breeze and the sun shone with her glowing beams and Silver’s hammock swayed in the shade as lithe pink petals fluttered down, just like every other day.

His home, that he’d sworn to protect no matter what sacrifices he had to make.

And Sonic wasn’t home, and surely he’d be really homesick.

…Maybe he was just trying to have fun to not focus on that homesickness?

The mere thought of that possibility made sadness sink into Silver’s stomach like a rock. Being stranded in another era could be maddening if one wasn’t there for a good reason, but because an archnemesis won against them. At least, Silver figured that made sense. Sonic hadn’t seemed sad, but maybe he’d just been trying to hide it to not make Silver sad?

The more Silver thought it over, the more his resolve grew. “I’ll help him,” he decreed, hands gripping the edge of his hammock. “And I’ll keep him company, so he doesn’t have to be sad. And I’ll get him back to the past so he’ll be okay. It’s my duty to keep everyone safe, and that includes Sonic!”

In one fell swoop Silver jumped to the ground, tiredness forgotten in full as he scrambled past the brambles and rushed off into Mountain River Zone with the wind guiding his way. He’d help as best he could, and he would get Sonic safely back to his own era, no matter what it took.

But he wouldn’t let it be fun.

Adventures simply weren’t fun, and that was that.

Chapter Text

‘Neat area’ hardly covered the sheer beauty of the future, Sonic had long conceded with a cry of delight.

The city made a good benchmark, always kept to Sonic’s left as he rushed about. So far he’d encountered a huge tunnel carved through a mountain range, with multiple roads sprawling out of it and towards the ocean: the closer they got, the deeper they sunk under the water’s surface until they were visible no more. Sonic had traversed further and found his way in the next stretch of forest, with ample springs and rails and other setpieces for him to collect rings at lighting speed. To Sonic’s right, the mountains hugged the sky with their jagged, stony peaks; snow glittered on their very tops. The world thrilled with life, with wonder, so similar to what Sonic knew and yet a bit different, and every breath he drew carried the promise of adventure…!

With a laugh Sonic scrambled up a pine tree, the tallest he could find. Precariously swaying in the wind as he held onto its tip and rested his feet against the tree’s trunk the speedster whooped only more, the side of a hand pressed against his forehead to block out the sun so he could see. The world stretched out around him, glowing in the light of the late morning… It was indeed the area where he’d travelled to in the past to find Eggman’s base. Sonic would recognise those rocky mountains and grassy hills curling around an ocean inlet anywhere, even if the city in the past had been far smaller. “Amazing,” Sonic settled on, drawing a breath of the fresh air. Corkscrews and loop-de-loops filled the heavens, and keen green eyes easily spotted ample more places where they hung. Those meant rings to collect!

Though, despite the fact the world was so gorgeous, there was one little thing that made matters a mite less pleasant. Sonic had been having less luck with the big ring portal that would lead him to a Special Stage.

That was to say, he had yet to encounter even just one of those in his searching.

Between plants and trees, on platforms and on top of loop-de-loops, in the sky and on the ground: not a single portal had popped up despite Sonic’s adequate ring count. It made Emerald-hunting difficult… The chances of finding an Emerald in a Special Stage were far higher than stumbling across one just laying about. But Sonic could only shrug uncaringly at it all: the world was too peaceful for stressing about whether he would find one soon. The wind made his quills rustle, the sun shone so soothingly warmly, and clouds rolled by lazily, as downy and fluffy as the-

Sonic narrowly avoided falling right out of the tree as a particularly strong gale caught him entirely by surprise, because his thoughts had been somewhere else completely.

As downy and fluffy as the mane of a particular friend, they had wanted to flow towards.

Slowly the speedster blinked, letting go of the pine so he could leap to the ground without undignifiedly falling. That was… not exactly what he’d been expecting his mind would conjure up. “Weird,” Sonic allowed himself to concede, padding onwards through the forest at an ambling pace now. He’d have to slow down anyway: it wouldn’t do if he ran by a ring portal that’d lead him to a Special Stage because he was going too fast to notice.

With a hum Sonic pressed a hand against his chest. The thrum of the energy of the dozens of tinier rings he’d been collecting made him smile, a few more spotted from where they floated over a platform. Sonic landed on it gracefully to snatch them, drawing a deep breath. Pink and white blossoms coated the trees, amidst splotches of green. “Spring’s in full swing,” Sonic joked out loud, chuckling at the petals fluttering down in the wind. They did make his nose itch, but the speedster fought that urge down. He’d blow away the ones right in front of his face if he had to sneeze, and that wouldn’t do; holding out his hand allowed for some to land on his palm. A couple of white ones, not unlike-

Sonic jolted anew.

Not unlike Silver’s fluffy chest, in its pristine white colour.

“Geez, Sonic. What is going on with you, buddy?” the speedster playfully chastised himself. A nearby puddle provided a reflection to look at, Sonic wriggling his eyebrows and pulling a silly face at it. “A guy saves your life once and carries you back home in his arms, and all you can think of since then is his chest fur?”

His reflection did nothing but copy the movements, before falling into the more pondering frown Sonic pulled. Because it was strange. Heck, Shadow also had a tuft of fur, yet Sonic could not recall a single time he’d paid it any mind. Silver’s tuft meanwhile quite refused to leave it… Perhaps because it had been the last thing Sonic had seen before losing his unconsciousness. Or because it was, in a way, endearingly goofy that such a grumpy, serious guy like Silver was endowed with such a soft scarf around his neck.

But still. Even if Silver’s mane was very soft and luscious, it’d been a mere accident it had broken Sonic’s fall. That aside, telling Silver his opinion on it would likely result in Sonic getting flung into the stratosphere. Obsessing over it felt a bit extreme.

Around Sonic, the winds picked up, and the speedster breathed a little sigh of calm into their gales as his quills got tussled. Because at the same time, what did it matter? This whole situation was strange to begin with. And Silver had shown himself to be a kind soul, just like Espio had stated, if one ignored his temper and volatileness. Who cared that Sonic found himself endlessly thinking about him?

…Okay, endlessly was perhaps a bit much, the speedster conceded with a snort. He could spent a little time thinking about Silver – not his mane but the whole hedgehog – and a lot more about where to find the Emeralds. “Let’s go. You’re not gonna find your way to an Emerald anytime soon like this,” Sonic bolstered his resolve through his reflection, bouncing on his feet before turning around and kicking into a brisk jog to blast off-

And crashing right into someone.

Specifically someone with something downy and soft and white, and flickers of cyan.

“Oof-!” Sonic yelped. In one fell swoop he found himself with a mouthful of fur, before the force of the crash made him stagger back. A grunting noise meanwhile resounded from the something… In a voice that he recognised-!

Sonic’s head whipped up. “Silver?”

The psychic floated a bit above the ground, face morphed into eagle-eyed concentration. It made for a bit of a silly contrast with the fact his mane right now had a Sonic’s-face-shaped imprint on it. “Hey,” the psychic spoke. “I’m going to help you because I don’t want you to die.”

Sonic stared. Silver did too, or at least his eyes were trained on Sonic with that crystal-sharpness they always contained. “Er,” Sonic found himself filling the silence first. “That is, uh… Sure! Sounds great. How did you find me?”

“The wind brought me to you.”

“Cool, cool. What was this about dying?”

“You’re not dying because I’m gonna make sure you won’t,” Silver huffed, arms crossing.

Sonic couldn’t quite shake the feeling the wind was having the time of its life here, considering how it rolled and jumped. Slowly he let Silver’s words sink in: first they made him blink, then raise an incredulous eyebrow. Silver was gonna make sure he wouldn’t die…?

“I’m not dying anyway,” the speedster piped up, amusement sparking up in him the more he processed Silver’s strange statement. Him, dying? From what: an adventure in the future? Almost falling out of a pine tree? Silver didn’t know him very well if he was so convinced Sonic’s demise was right around the corner. Thus, Sonic grinned, shaking his head. “Don’t you think it’s a bit dramatic to presume I will?”

“You’re good at getting in trouble, so no,” Silver shrugged back.

Keeping as straight a face as he could Sonic nodded. “Good point.”

“And, well…”

Silver averted his gaze upwards, the other chewing on his lip. A long silence followed, in which Silver’s eyes remained trained on the horizon and Sonic’s eyes remained trained on him. There was something the psychic wanted to say… “I figured that you’d be… homesick, and stuff,” that turned out to be.

Which wasn’t at all what Sonic had expected to hear. “Homesick?”

An awkward raising and dropping of grey-furred shoulders followed. “Yeah. Since you’re not home, and you can’t go home yet. I figured you’d be… you know, sad! Or scared!” Silver explained, his head turning back towards Sonic. Genuine concern twisted his features, the speedster realised with a jolt, and he could have sworn he heard it in Silver’s voice as well. “I thought that… maybe having someone you know around you will help. That is… We don’t know each other well, but… I don’t want you to be sad, or scared. And you would be sad or scared if you were just out here on your own the whole day, so…”

“…Awww, Silver,” Sonic responded as the psychic trailed off, a bright smile blossoming on his face. “That’s really nice of you!”

And most unexpected, actually. And also…

Sonic had whooped, and hollered, and ran his heart out, and been extensively marvelling at just how gorgeous the future was, just like the past. And where the past had been on his mind, mostly the question how to get back to there with Special Stage portals eluding him…

Well, homesick was a big word.

Gesturing for Silver to follow him Sonic set off, padding further underneath the trees. “But I’m okay,” he explained, as Silver’s head tipped to the side with that guarded look immediately racing back onto his features again. “I was looking at this place from the sky just now, actually. It’s really mostly the same as the past, so…”

A long silence followed. “You’re… not homesick?” Silver eventually settled on, brow raised incredulously as Sonic nodded.

“The world is my home.”

“Which means…?”

“Wherever I go, I feel safe. And the world of this era is the same as mine, isn’t it? So I’m not sad or scared,” Sonic smiled… even if it did sink away into a frown soon after. “Though, I do worry about my pals back in the past. Eggman made me all but disappear, so…”

Immediately Silver tensed. “What if they think you’re dead?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” the speedster winked. “I know Tails and Amy are keeping their chins up. They’re well aware nothing Eggman says can be trusted, and nobody saw what happened anyway. If Eggman says I’m dead, they won’t believe it because they didn’t see it with their own eyes. I’m sure Tails is already figuring out the possibilities that I got sent into another dimension or something, which must means that I’m very much still alive.”

“Hmm… If Tails thinks of such a scenario, it’s not even so far from the truth,” Silver nodded as well, if slowly. Still, Sonic counted it as a victory.

“But that does mean I’m not around to keep an eye on things should Eggman plan an attack, which is what concerns me most,” he continued. “They’re all good fighters, but I’d rather not anything happened to them because I wasn’t around to stop Eggman.”

Silver opened his mouth anew, pulling that difficult face yet again, and thus Sonic cut right through whatever he wanted to say with a wink. “So your help is greatly appreciated, Silver!”

“But that means you-! Er. Uh… Anytime,” became Silver’s statement, followed by a: “How is… the Emerald-hunting going?”

“Poorly,” the speedster honestly responded, ears twitching. “I collected a whole bunch of rings in the hopes that a big one would show up somewhere and take me to a Special Stage, but no such luck so far.”

An even deeper frown marred Silver’s face; not unlike how he slept, Sonic figured with a snort firmly kept to himself. “I don’t know where you can find Emeralds, really. People just often have them already, and then they get stolen or they just disappear,” the psychic pondered, as the two of them slowed to a halt. The forest rustled around them as Silver bopped in the air, and Sonic peeked around all over yet saw nothing akin to a ring portal appear anywhere. All the while Silver tensed only more, and Sonic shot him an encouraging smile.

“That’s just what the Emeralds are like. They can be fickle.” Just like Silver’s temper, though Sonic knew better than to say that out loud and risk making the other angry at him. “But we’ll find them no problem, you and I!”

Wary golden eyes scrutinised him all over. “What makes you think that?”

“I’ve got faith in us both.”

“We don’t even know each other.”

“That’s not true! We’ve adventured before together.” Which… even Sonic and his ability to see the sun in the most cloudy of weather could not spin into an adventure that had been fun for either of them, to be most honest. Poor Tails still bristled indignantly at any mention of having been called a half-pint. And Sonic also had not yet forgotten Silver’s foul mood and hot temper whenever they crossed paths.

But none of that matched the sheer worry on Silver’s face when he’d rescued Sonic, or how he’d fretted about Sonic’s injury. Or even now, with his genuine concern about Sonic’s alleged homesickness. Would the speedster have laughed about it if said by any other person, somehow Silver’s concerns could only make him smile fondly instead. No, there was so much more to Silver than what Sonic and friends had seen on those two islands, Sonic could just feel it. He had to learn more still.

“Why didn’t you go along immediately?” the speedster spoke up first, breaking the silence that had been stretching out between them.

Golden eyes narrowed, and most promptly any form of worry and concern evaporated from Silver’s face like snow on a sunny morning. Instead the other hedgehog bared his teeth. “I get on your nerves, remember?” got huffed back… and Sonic blinked.

“…Oh. Yes, I did say that.” Because even Sonic couldn’t deal so well with someone who came at him yelling and hollering and constantly demanding him to leave, even though he was busy saving his friends. Perhaps his wording hadn’t been so nice, but Silver’s hadn’t been very nice either.

And yet Sonic had clearly – and slightly ironically – struck a nerve with it, since Silver remembered too.

Sonic shot a look at the other. Silver glared back in kind, quills bristling indignantly. And that would not do, the speedster conceded. If they wanted to make this team-up work without both getting mad, they would have to talk things out for sure. “But, you know… I am really good at getting on Tails’ nerves. Or Knuckles’. Even Amy’s! We’ve known each other for ages, so we know all the buttons we can press to get the other peeved,” he added, before a smile blossomed on his face. “And yet despite that, we still love each other.”

Silver’s face however remained most unsmiley. “I don’t follow.”

“You can annoy someone without them losing any love for you,” Sonic explained further. “None of us are perfect or flawless, Silver. It happens sometimes that you do something that others find hurtful, even if you didn’t mean it. Best you can do is apologise and keep it in mind for the future. Those that cherish you won’t love you any less for making mistakes, or tackling something in a way you shouldn’t have. So, I’m sorry for saying something hurtful.”

Pensively Silver rubbed his chin, before an incredulous shake of his head followed. “You don’t need to apologise for that. It’s how you felt. And telling you to get out of my way wasn’t a mistake, because you were.”

“There’s also value to be found in considering others’ perspectives,” Sonic chuckled, nudging his pal with an elbow. That, unfortunately, did little to make Silver do just that: the psychic promptly got a lot more spikey and also promptly floated a good handful of inches out of Sonic’s reach. Baby steps, the speedster encouraged himself. At least they were talking now. “But I’m not mad at what happened, not at all,” he added warmly. “It’s nice to get to know you better now!”

Silver’s lips pursed, for just a moment…

But under Sonic’s curious gaze, his face slowly, ever so slowly, did lose some of its frowniness. “I guess… it is nice, yeah,” got added almost hesitantly. “I never have guests over. Except for the wind, but he doesn’t talk. I don’t mind that it’s quiet, but it’s nice to have someone to talk to, I guess. If that makes sense.”

“It does. We’ll make it fun for us both! And we can go on that fun adventure,” Sonic urged him along.

Immediately Silver stiffened again.

That dour look, that had crossed his face before earlier this morning, formed right on it anew. “Adventures. Aren’t. Fun!” got hissed back with as much scorn as an acid burning right through a sheet of metal.

Whatever statement Sonic had expected, it certainly hadn’t been that. Adventures, not fun? “Er. What do you mean?” Sonic inquired back slowly.

Agitatedly Silver gestured to the trees and the loops and corkscrews beyond. “Don’t you see how fragile this all is? How it must be protected and looked after?! You don’t do that while you have fun!” he spat out, an irked breath sucked through his nose next. It did little to calm that agitation down. “Adventures are important. They’re to protect people; to protect the whole world. There’s nothing fun about that.”

“But we’re not saving the world right now-”

“We gotta get you home, and that’s also important! What if your friends are really worried about you? What if Eggman’s causing trouble now that you’re not there to stop him? How many people are going to suffer then?! It’s your responsibility to be there and protect-!”

“Silver,” Sonic interrupted, “you’re way overthinking this.”

Silver’s glare, if possible, became only more lethal. “I’m not.”

“Come on, bud, you’re a little bit.” Gently Sonic smiled. “I see what you mean, I really do! I’d say it’s important to know when it’s time to be serious, or when it’s time to not be. And I know that distinction very well.”

“You don’t seem like it,” the very blunt, very honest retort cut through Sonic like a knife. Luckily Sonic was entirely immune to knife-cut statements like these, and thus he couldn’t help but chuckle. Which… only made Silver leer more, but hey, Sonic was also immune to angry looks of any kind.

“I’ll show you when we’re in real trouble,” the speedster settled on with a wink, though he did force himself to become more serious. Clearly this was important to Silver, for whatever reason. Perhaps that responsibility that he mentioned came into play here… “And it’s not my responsibility to protect the world,” Sonic thus continued with dissecting Silver’s words. “Besides, it’s not even the first time a thing like this has happened, and everything was okay every single time I’ve disappeared to some other place. And it will be now too!”

Golden eyes regarded him most suspiciously. “Where did you disappear to, then?”

“Another dimension… Into books… I hung out in space for like a week once…” The last of which his friends hadn’t been thrilled about, actually, but Sonic decided to keep that detail for himself. “Point is, my pals know that these things just happen sometimes. And there’s no way Eggman’s gonna take over the world anytime soon.”

In one miffed movement Silver crossed his arms tautly. “Well, I think that we need to get a move on, and not waste time on having fun.”

Sonic regarded him up and down. Silver floated still, the definition of ‘guarded’ and ‘closed-off’ and ‘certainly not having any fun indeed’. And that would not do either, the determination struck Sonic like a second wind. He didn’t want Silver to always be so glum and irked, and especially not if it was because underneath his surface he was endlessly ruminating about all potential things that could be going wrong. That was no way to live.

Surely if he just went along with Sonic, and they traversed this beautiful world together, and Sonic could show him how to have fun…

“Silver,” he piped up, the psychic jolting. “Can I promise you something?”

A grey eyebrow raised. “Sure? Whatever you want.”

“I promise you that by the end of this adventure, I’ll have proven to you how much fun one can be. Without us having wasted time.” Lifting up his hand Sonic held out his pinkie finger. “Promise.”

His finger… got regarded rather warily. “What are you doing?”

“Heh. Have you never done a pinkie promise before?”

“Nah. The children in the city do it with each other all the time, but not me. No idea what the point of one is.”

“It signifies that you’re making an unbreakable promise. And my promise to you is that we will have fun, the both of us,” Sonic smiled, holding his hand with extended finger up to the other.

Silver remained silent for long. But Sonic waited patiently, the wind poking and prodding at his companion as his hand got studied… “I don’t see how you can be so confident about that,” the psychic eventually settled on.

But he did lower himself onto the ground.

And he did slowly, carefully, ball his hand into a fist before extending his pinkie as well, standing stiffly as Sonic made them both interlink. “Promise,” the speedster repeated anew, winking and smiling as Silver’s finger lightly curled around his. The other hedgehog shrugged back awkwardly, and so they stood, with the wind dancing around them in delight until Sonic carefully pulled away anew.

And with that gale guiding him he blasted off, but this time, Silver rushed right at his side.

Chapter Text

Silver’s pinkie felt weird.

Absentmindedly the psychic rubbed at his finger, like he’d been doing over and over since Sonic had intertwined it with his own. A promise… It didn’t make much sense to the psychic. But Sonic had seemed like he knew what he was talking about, so Silver had decided to just not focus on it anymore. No way Sonic would be able to show him adventures were fun.

Speaking of, the speedster was certainly managing to entertain himself aplenty. Somewhere in the distance Silver could discern a blue streak, rushing madly past the plentiful loop-de-loops and corkscrews that littered Mountain River Zone. Looking for the entrance to a Special Stage, he’d said; but as the streak came racing right at Silver before skidding into a halt, Sonic shook his head.

“Nothing. No big ring for it anywhere.”

“Darn it,” Silver grumbled under his breath. “I’ve got no idea how to make one appear.”

“Emeralds and Special Stages are plenty finicky. Sometimes the big rings appear out of nowhere, sometimes you need a whole bunch of smaller ones before one might spawn,” Sonic explained, dropping onto the ground on his butt. “But that does leave us in a bit of a pickle.”

With a huff Silver took to the air instead, bobbing up and down as he rubbed his chin. “Any other idea where we can find an Emerald, other than a Special Stage?”

“Not yet, but I’ve been thinking. You said others sometimes collect them, right?

“They do, yes. But I don’t know from where.”

“It would be most convenient if someone had them already,” Sonic nodded back. “Is Shadow still around?”

Promptly Silver tensed. “Hm,” he shrugged back to win himself time, eyes scrunching up as he thought the question over deeply. Because the answer to that was yes: Silver could attest to multiple days of hunting the black hedgehog down with no respite until he’d found him, alongside some giant robot who seemed to consist of about eighty percent ammo and bullets. But could he say that to Sonic? Shadow seemed pretty reclusive, considering how hard it had been to find him to begin with. And more importantly, who knew what such an answer could do to the timestream? “I shouldn’t tell you that,” Silver thus settled on.

Green eyes twinkled mischievously as Silver sent them a dry look back. But Sonic’s smile was warm still, his hands digging into the grass as he leaned backwards. “Then I won’t pry. What about GUN?”

Had Silver been tense already, now he tensed only more… because a deep-seated sourness took him in its hold, and he scowled at the speedster. “They are. They’re on the news sometimes, with a lot of propaganda about how they’re keeping us safe and stuff.” And promptly Silver’s arms crossed so tight it made his ribs hurt. “They’re doing a really bad job at it, though. A collection of incompetents, the whole lot of them. It’s awful.”

That… earned Silver a laugh. A full laugh, Sonic’s head tipping backwards and his eyes shutting. It proved quite interrupting to Silver’s sulking, because he couldn’t tear his gaze away from it: people didn’t laugh at what he said, usually, or at least not in a way that looked like they thought it was…

Funny?

But not bad funny.

“That sounds just like GUN from the past,” Sonic winked at him.

“Yeah, well… I guess. They’re… working on it, but not very well. They’ve never managed to capture my nemesis in full.” Which promptly made Silver grouse only more, his eyes narrowing. How idiotic could GUN be, letting Eggman Nega escape even after Silver handed them the card that evil scientist was trapped in? They’d asked for it with the promise Eggman Nega would be facing justice and going straight to jail the moment they got him out of the card, and yet days later he’d already broken out of it himself with not a single lick of justice served. At the very least the army had helped Silver go to the past again to chase after the madman anew. It was little to repent for their stupidity, but they also could not have helped, and the world would have been overrun by the Ifrit then.

Which did make him wonder… “GUN used to have two Emeralds, actually. But they don’t anymore,” the psychic mused.

An inquiring look got sent his way at that. “How do you know?”

“It’s because of those two Emeralds that I travelled to the past the second time. The first time I was on Onyx Island already. But the second time, Eggman Nega was already gone and things were a lot in disarray, so GUN found two Emeralds and used them with me for Chaos Control.”

“Yes, but why did they lose them?”

“Oh,” Silver hummed, “I asked them what they were going to do with the Emeralds after sending me to the past, and they said they’d send them on their way too. Swore it, even.”

Sonic’s lips twitched again. “And did they do that?”

“Yes, of course! They promised it. Not with a pinkie, but they swore they would.”

“Because I don’t think any promise made by the army can be counted on to be followed.”

“But they said they were going to do it,” Silver insisted.

Sonic, however, shook his head. “Did you see them do it?”

“No. I had already jumped in the portal.”

“And did they reach out to you afterwards about it?”

“…No. But-!”

“GUN is not a group that’ll follow their word if that is less convenient for them, Silver,” Sonic said gently. “I’ll betcha those Emeralds are both safely tucked away in a GUN base, for them to use again whenever they see fit.”

With a grumble Silver dropped to the ground, his mood souring far too quickly to keep up flying for fun. “I hope not for their sake,” he spat back, “because you don’t want to know the things I’ll do to them when I find out they lied.”

“You know,” Sonic grinned, “I think I’ll be seeing that with my own eyes really soon.”

His hand got extended to Silver.

With a more curious flick of his ears Silver regarded it. “In what way?”

“Because I suggest we change our Emerald-hunting plans a bit. This sounds like a way better lead to look into. Are you in?” got winked at him, Sonic’s fingers splaying as he stretched them out more. A suggestion for Silver to shake it, for whatever reason. With a frown Silver studied his own hand, mind whirring… But yes, he did have to agree with Sonic that the people he’d been talking to had been rather disingenuous about the fate of the Emeralds. And considering everything that had happened with Eggman Nega, Sonic raised quite a good point about GUN being untrustworthy.

In one fell swoop, their hands clasped, and Silver’s brow furrowed into the most focused of frowns as he shot Sonic a nod.

“Let’s go.”

☆☆☆☆☆

GUN, which didn’t surprise Sonic in the slightest, had not kept their Emeralds in the location Silver had last seen them.

“But this is where we opened the portal!” the psychic protested, fur bristling indignantly amidst his mad pacing through the base. An empty base, more specifically: Sonic had to stifle extensive sneezes at the dust getting flicked around by Silver’s steps. It didn’t help that they had made their way through the entire place in their search, psychokinesis raising open endless heavy metal doors that slammed shut again the moment they’d entered through… And yet every room had been empty, cleaned up in full and with no traces left that there even had been anyone in the first place. Ominous, and the way Silver’s voice echoed against the walls intensified that feeling only more. “Why aren’t they here anymore?!” got added in a full yell of rage, Sonic stifling a wince at the sound assaulting his eardrums.

“GUN works with secrecy a lot,” he informed his companion, a bit muffled from where he stood squeezing his nose shut like mad. “That comes with the territory of being the army. And besides, this base is nothing impressive. Far too tiny. I don’t think they’d keep their Emeralds safe here.” Perhaps they’d even wanted to keep them away from Silver, though Sonic couldn’t think of any reason why, other than the fact the psychic seemed like someone quite liable to turn on GUN the moment he sniffed out he’d been deceived. And like someone who stood a decent chance of overpowering them, even with two centuries of technological advances at the army’s side. No doubt GUN had not missed that either.

But whatever the truth, one thing the speedster was sure of: GUN had to have lied.

Some grouses and grumbles followed as both hedgehogs pondered and thought this conundrum over, one on the brink of exploding and the other also, if only because of allergies. But eventually Sonic snapped his finger and grinned at Silver. “I got it! How about their main headquarters?” he beamed…

Before realising he removed the fingers previously clamped over his nose.

Which meant his words immediately got followed by him beginning to sneeze in earnest.

Some mad gestures and gasped-out fragments of sentences were needed to show Silver, who stood staring at Sonic’s hacking and wheezing with a mixture of worry and incredulousness, that Sonic had to get out of here right now and thus could Silver raise up the door that kept them stuck in this specific room pronto, please. But as Sonic turned around to go blast off to the lands around the ocean inlet the moment Silver would do that…

He instead yelped, because cyan enshrouded him, pulled him backwards most unceremoniously, and dropped him right into grey-furred arms. “Hold on,” Silver hummed, gingerly clutching Sonic close. Sonic merely gasped something back, because he’d been put right by that mane and the whisps of fur tickled his nose only more-!

But then Silver raised up and the world shifted and turned in cyan three, four times in rapid succession. Rushes of speed and motion intersected the cyan, and in mere seconds dank stale air had turned crisp and Sonic got put down on a rocky slope at the edge of the ocean. The speedster didn’t find it in himself to figure this was the same shifting as when Silver teleported him away to Sky Park Zone on Onyx Island, though. He was a bit too busy sucking in the fresh air seconds before the massive sneezing fit holding him in its grasp would be his last.

“Thanks,” Sonic rasped once he’d finally caught his breath a few minutes later, wiping his nose on his glove. “Whew! That base has been abandoned since the last time you went there, that’s for sure.”

Silver had been hovering around Sonic a mite awkwardly, eventually having settled on half-rubbing, half-smacking Sonic’s back while the speedster had been hacking his lungs out. But as Sonic spoke, his face darkened, and some words that Sonic figured were curses got spat out next. Madly the psychic took to pacing, hands balled and the occasional poor seashell or rock getting psychokinetically picked up to be flung at the ocean with enough force to make water spat up a full three meters. “What will we do?! I don’t know where their main headquarters are!” got snarled out inbetween.

“It’ll be okay,” Sonic smiled back with what he hoped Silver would see was gentle assurance. “We’ll figure out something, you and I.”

“I’m going to kill all of them,” was the approximate response Sonic got over another plunk! of a rock returning to the waves. With a shake of his head Sonic decided to give Silver some space, green eyes studying their surroundings. The city glittered across the waves in the distance, shining in the light of the noon sun… Sonic had yet to go there in all of his exploring.

And cities, as a undeniable fact of life, often had many people in them who could be talked to and who had information on all sorts of goings-on in the surroundings.

Maybe they just had to go into the city, Sonic mused, and a plan begun forming in his mind at lightning speed.

A while later, once Silver had calmed down enough to not fling a whole beach-worth of stones and shells in the ocean, Sonic padded beside him through one of the underwater pipes he’d seen in his previous exploring. On the mainland, a road with a hiking and cycling trail had led towards the ocean’s edge, where a glass canopy had started and formed a half-pipe the deeper the road dropped underneath the water’s surface. They were truly walking right on the ocean floor, like Silver had said. Sonic found himself quite preoccupied with marvelling at the underwater world beyond the glass, though Silver marched on with zero pausing. “I’m not sure this will work,” the psychic muttered. “Surely GUN won’t just… put the location of their secret headquarter base somewhere in the city? Or would they? Or are their headquarters in the city?”

Sonic, amidst his staring, caught Silver’s words barely in time. “Ah… I doubt that. The one in the past isn’t, at least. And GUN might not put its location for anyone to stumble across, but there’s more people out there than just them. There’s always conspiracies, or those in the know, or even just people who accidentally put something in the newspaper that they shouldn’t,” he informed his pal. “Other people are our best shot here, and there’s surely tons of them in your city.”

“Millions, yep. That’s why they had to expand into the ocean.”

“It looks amazing,” Sonic smiled. With Silver at his side he ambled through the walkway, studying the ocean outside the half-pipe with no small amount of curiosity. Tons more smaller pipes were connected to the one he and Silver were in, leading to all sorts of buildings visible through the glass… Sonic whistled in awe. “These are the buildings we see above the water too?”

“They are,” Silver nodded back. “You can enter them and go up and down with elevators. Above the water there’s tons of pipes and bridges and stuff as well to walk between them, but the buildings were built right on the ocean floor.”

“That’s really neat.” With his hand trailing past the glass of the half-pipe they were in Sonic peeked all over, the ocean’s blue-and-white flickering outside of their walkway making him marvel only more.

Beside him Silver knocked a knuckle against it. “The pipes are very sturdy, too. People didn’t want a disaster with having them break all the time.”

“Can they break?”

“Anything can,” Silver shrugged. “But they’ve got whole systems in place for that. You see how the pipe is made out of segments? Each can be closed off with a trap door of sorts, that can fall shut and close off a broken part of the pipe, once everyone is out. It’ll keep the water contained, and the pipe can be repaired from the outside and drained.”

Following the finger pointing upwards, where the glass indeed was intercepted by a thick line of grey, Sonic nodded. “You know it well.”

“Of course! What if one of them breaks and I don’t know what to do about it?! I read it all in the library.”

Sonic’s ears gave a flick. Silver had mentioned that before… “That is also a botanical garden, you said?” he prodded, regarding his pal closely. He could have sworn a little glimmer of joy had formed in those oh-so-serious golden eyes, matched by the firm nod of Silver’s head…

“It is! It’s incredibly neat,” Silver agreed. And then he opened his mouth anew, and…

Sonic could only stare in surprise at the utter tsunami of words that spilled out.

“So the problem with books is that they’re all paper, right? And you don’t want paper to get humid. Or computers, for that matter. Except plants transpire and water evaporates from their stomata so the air can get quite moist if you’ve got a lot, and the library has thousands of plants. So what they did is that they very carefully looked at all the species of plants that could work in libraries, and they selected a whole bunch of them that are good for air purification and that help keep the temperature down and that won’t ruin the books with excessive moisture. There’s a lot of cacti and they’ve also got succulents and ferns that are all placed in pots and stuff, and there’s also plants placed against the bricks so it makes a green wall. The roof is a dome made of glass and there’s a huge open space in the middle of the library so all the light can go down! And the parts of the roof that aren’t glass are terraces that you can go onto, and they’re all full of plants too to help keep the temperature in the library down, and they also attract a lot of insects with the flowers. And every floor of the library also has a reading nook with plants that hang from the ceiling, so it’s really nice to be there,” Silver produced in what Sonic swore was a single breath, somehow.

It was both the most he’d ever heard Silver talk in one go, and absolutely the most eager.

“Whoa, really? That’s so cool!” Sonic made sure to urge the other along in his talking, lips twitching up into a warm smile. Silver looked cute in his eagerness like that, with haphazard hand movements that made his entire body flow along in his chatter. Dozens of plant names came by next, accompanied by their function and why they did well in this specific library, in a gushing chatter that made Sonic wonder how Silver wasn’t running out of oxygen…

And all the while, he just couldn’t tear his eyes away from Silver’s face.

Because he could have sworn a smile was visible on tan lips while all the furrows and creases of his face had evened out entirely, and in a way, Silver looked sunnier than every summer day Sonic had lived through so far.

How very odd, the speedster mused. Maybe it just caught his attention because it was about the first time he’d ever seen Silver genuinely happy. But as it stood Sonic was given little time to think it over: the half-pipe angled upwards, the world lightened around them, and Sonic threw a hand in front of his eyes at the sunlight hitting his face as he and Silver stepped onto cobblestones. “And that is why they use ivy to coat the banisters and the stairs,” Silver concluded his spiel. “And welcome in the city. We’re right in the city centre here.”

Sonic couldn’t stop himself from bouncing in excitement. “Whoa… It’s gorgeous! It looks so old!”

“Apparently this city centre hasn’t changed much in the past centuries. This place is well over a millennium old,” Silver nodded. Sonic could believe it: the facades of the houses were most charming and old-fashioned, little cafes tucked away in corners of the streets and plentiful canals stretching out as far as the eye could see between them. The only thing that did tip him off about being in the future were all the high-tech screens and fancy hoverboards and robotic creations Sonic couldn’t even guess the function of, that gave everything a soft neon glow. Though, his marvelling got interrupted by Silver, who pressed his fists into his hips. “What now? How will we find info about GUN?”

“Shhh. Keep your voice down,” Sonic told him, winking to show Silver he wasn’t mad. GUN had more ears around than he liked in the past; surely the future would not be much different. Slowly the speedster set off onto the street, past houses and shops while keeping his eyes peeled.

A huff followed behind him. “Do you even know what you’re doing?”

“Quite so.” And Sonic’s amble slowed to a prompt halt as his gaze darted past what he’d been looking for. Over the years the speedster had found himself rather familiar with all the signs someone needed some help: worried faces, wringing hands, pacing and muttering to others…

Precisely what a guy in a fancy green uniform with a big hat was doing at the very corner of the street, the man alternating between frenzied walking and leaning close to mumble in the ear of a lady dressed so inconspicuously normal all Sonic’s senses of suspicion got triggered immediately.

“I wonder what they’re talking about,” Silver hummed, looking over into the direction of the duo as well. “That guy… His name is Ermanno, I believe. This city has a whole guard that’s keeping it safe… well, allegedly. And that lady I don’t know. But she’s a GUN agent.”

That Sonic had not expected, and the speedster shot his pal a curious look. “How do you know?”

“They all stand like that. All stiffly, see?” That the lady did, Sonic suppressing a pained grimace at the ramrod-straight way her back was held. That had to hurt. “And when they’re not in uniform they wear those clothes too. It looks casual, but like… way too much. Plus, they’ve all got a super-tight bun or short hair. And do you see her glasses?” Silver continued, Sonic’s eyes trailing upward to the woman’s face. Indeed, it was adorned with a pair of them, Sonic studying their square appearance. “All GUN people have them. They’re fancy vizors with heat vision and stuff, one guy told me once. He said they could shoot lasers too and freeze people on the spot in ice and send out electric shocks with as much volts as the power grid, but I’ve never seen any of that myself,” the psychic concluded, ears twitching.

Even for a technologically-advanced future, that reeked of nonsense, and thus Sonic snorted. It seemed more likely that the guy in question had been having some fun with lying to the world’s most honest psychic. Sonic wasn’t going to point that out now and risk Silver gutting the nearest GUN agent he could take his ire out on, however, and thus the speedster nodded inconspicuously towards the duo. “Let’s go ask them, shall we? Not about the lasers or the ice or electricity, but if they need help.”

Silver stiffened. “…What’s the point of asking if they need help?” got growled out with so much venom Sonic swore it made the cobblestones tremble and shake. “We gotta find the GUN base. I don’t want to help the army again, they suck at being the army!”

Stifling a snort at that very succinct summary of GUN’s track record, Sonic shook his head. “They might have the info we need. And people are more talkative if you’re nice to them, no?”

“…Huh. I mean, I do suppose,” Silver responded slowly, rubbing his chin in pondering. Sonic had to hide a smile at that, remembering very well how he’d met Silver. The psychic had ran up to him, both times… and both times that had been accompanied by snarling, yelling, flared quills, glaring eyes, bared teeth, and generally a lot of unpleasantness from Silver’s side that had not at all been nice.

But that was in the past, and things were going far smoother between them. Thus Sonic opened his mouth to discuss how to best do this-

Before jolting as Silver kicked into motion, right towards the two humans. “Wait!” Sonic realised, reaching out to snatch Silver’s arm and pull him back. If the psychic introduced himself the way he had to Sonic, they could forget getting any info out of these people-!

The moment his fingers curled around Silver’s arm, though, the psychic jumped. Most promptly Sonic got scorched in a deathly glare, some of those signs of un-nice-ness showing anew as Silver snarled. The cobblestones quivered only more from the deep reverberations. “I’ll handle the talking,” the speedster promptly decreed over the growl sent his way. “How about you pay attention to how that lady’s acting, and see if she reacts suspiciously?”

“Let go!” Silver snapped, arm yanked right out of Sonic’s grasp. “That… Sure.”

“Sorry,” Sonic hummed back placatingly, taking a little step backwards. He got glared at still, but at least Silver’s growls quieted down while the psychic madly rubbed the fur of his arm. “Let’s do this,” the speedster added before prancing over, Silver’s eyes burning a hole in him still as he followed a good distance behind.

Both humans had been talking to each other throughout that all, Ermanno frantically and the woman with one-word responses. As a silence fell into the conversation Sonic stepped forward a bit louder, both humans flinching and whirling around towards the two hedgehogs. “Hello,” Sonic nodded towards them both. “You guys look like there’s trouble abound.”

“Oh-! Uh, greetings, pal. And hi, Silver,” Ermanno responded. “No, all is well… for now.”

The woman shot him an irked look, though Sonic’s ears perked up immediately. “For now?”

“It is of no concern to you, civilian,” the icily stiff response came from her side. “I can assure you all is well.”

Sonic’s ears twitched slowly. Tough crowd indeed. But this was the exact situation he and Silver needed… In a split second the speedster weighed his options, before grinning. Being bold had always brought him far enough. “Sir, are you a guard of the city?” he inquired, gesturing to the fancy sword attached to Ermanno’s belt.

“Er… Yes, indeed.”

“I do quite feel like things are not so well if a guard and a GUN agent are talking together so secretly.”

Ermanno grimaced deeply, and the lady stiffened. “Apologies? A GUN agent?” she retorted, possibly even more cold than before. “I can assure you that a mere civilian like you has no idea whether they are talking to someone of the army.”

Sonic opened his mouth to retort… before his head snapped to the side at the scoff coming from there. “You are of the army. You’ve got their glasses, and their clothes and their hair bun,” Silver huffed back, crossing his arms. “So what’s going on?”

Ermanno opened his mouth as if he wanted to intervene, but nothing came out. Instead the lady crossed her arms just as tautly as Silver’s were. “I reiterate: this does not concern two children. Leave now, before you both get in trouble.”

“Actually,” Sonic spoke up, “this is Silver, and he’s a hero and very brave and strong. If anyone can solve your issue, it’ll be him.”

Golden eyes snapped over to him, genuine surprise coating Silver’s features. But what caused it Sonic did not know, nor could he ask. “Well… Yeah! I am,” the psychic hummed anyway, before turning his glare right back to the GUN lady. “And this is Sonic, and he’s a brave hero as well.”

Sonic’s interest got piqued immediately at the way the lady had raised an eyebrow behind her glasses throughout these introductions. First she studied the speedster, before shaking her head minutely. But then she looked at Silver… “Silver, hmm,” followed. In a mere second her stance shifted ever so slightly, the woman’s head angling down to the psychic as if he suddenly had become the most interesting person in the whole world. Perhaps those vizors could do more than detect heat and probably not shoot lasers, ice and electricity, Sonic figured. “Weren’t you the boy GUN asked to go back in time to chase down Dr. Robotnik?” got added slowly.

“The boy?” Silver repeated with such a level of indignance Sonic had never had to fight so hard to keep a straight face.

“And he succeeded,” he made sure to intercept before Silver would roundhouse-kick a GUN agent, “and that man is now…”

“Trapped in a burning hell dimension and hopefully getting long having gotten eaten alive by the Ifrit.”

“Exactly, so if there’s a single person who’d be able to protect your city, it’ll be Silver. We’ll show you.”

“We can use all the help we can get,” Ermanno piped up meekly, hands wringing as he shot the GUN lady a pleading stare. “Silver’s always here in the city to help out the guard… If you’ve got good experiences with um, him, as a hero and such, maybe it’s, er, okay if he and his friend… lend a hand?”

“We’d be happy to. The people who live here deserve to be safe. That’s why GUN exists, right?” Sonic pushed a bit further. And slowly but surely, the lady’s lips pursed only more…

“Hm. I suppose the situation as it is now will be a cinch to solve for someone with your feats, Silver. And this Sonic…”

“Has a lot of feats too,” Silver dryly added. “Tell us, now.”

Sonic’s glare of warning came just a second too late… but mercifully Ermanno opened his mouth before the GUN agent could stop him in turn. “At the warehouses on the industry terrain,” came stuttering out; first hesitantly, then more and more frantically till the guard was altogether rambling. “There’s noises, skitters… People are terrified! They’re walking out of their jobs because they’re feeling watched by something! Everyone swears that there is a… a creature or a being or a what-have-you hiding there, but nobody has seen anything! And the shipments-! We’ve been trading for centuries, but all the competition is doing so much better these days all of a sudden! It’s almost like there is something surveilling the warehouses, spying on everything and everyone, and-!”

“And we can fight whatever it is and destroy it!” Silver interrupted with the subtlety of a fully packed freight train. “Sounds great! We’ll go and see right now.”

With a muffled chuckle at the ease with which his pal jumped to this plight Sonic nodded. “We’ll have this figured out in no time,” he agreed, cheekily saluting the GUN lady and Ermanno. And then he lightly curled his fingers around Silver’s hand and tugged him away from the corner, giving it a squeeze as another hiss followed. “Before that ice queen can change her mind,” he muttered over his shoulder, which did make Silver blink ponderingly before nodding with his angry noises dying down.

“Warehouses are this way. Follow me,” the psychic said instead, hand wrenched out of Sonic’s grasp with slightly less hostility than he had his arm, and the two hedgehogs blasted off deeper into the city. Eagerly the speedster followed in Silver’s steps, the streets quieting as they made their way towards the ocean, and all the while Sonic’s enthusiasm grew all the more.

Solving this problem would be a cinch indeed.

Chapter Text

“This way,” Silver gestured as he and Sonic noiselessly dropped over the chainlink fence that marked the edge of the industry terrain.

Sonic nodded, padding behind Silver with a whispered statement of understanding. In fact, the moment Silver told him to cut the jokes and keep quiet because otherwise they’d be noticed immediately, three streets prior, he’d obeyed those orders with zero complaint. Who knew the speedster was able to keep his mouth shut like this? Certainly not Silver, but the fact Sonic could was most merciful for this situation indeed. “This place is used for commerce stuff like storing cargo and transports and what have you. It’s technically forbidden to go in here, and that lady didn’t give us any permission either, so the moment anyone sees us they’ll try to kick us out. And that means we first need to fight them before we can fight whatever’s causing these issues, and that’ll be a huge waste of time,” the psychic explained in a whisper.

Green eyes twinkled, but Sonic nodded all the same. “Good point.”

With his powers Silver raised himself up onto the metal walkways that curled around stories-high silos. Be it how stealthy they had to be or the fact there clearly was something causing trouble: the backs of his hands prickled unpleasantly. With a frown Silver tugged up his gloves, before holding one hand out to pull Sonic onto their vantage point as well.

The way Sonic clasped it was strong and firm and fond and warm.

“Thanks,” the speedster mouthed with a wink as Silver tugged him up. His shoes lithely made contact with the metal, the echo quiet and ignorable as Silver shrugged away the gratitude. Just making sure he and Sonic stuck together and wouldn’t get noticed, really. And that Sonic didn’t have to go jump around all over to keep up with Silver and his abilities.

From the walkway the psychic studied the surroundings more, brow furrowing only more deeply. He didn’t see anything… The fact his vision blurred at the edges a bit didn’t help matters either. With irked motions Silver rubbed away at his eyes to force down their sting. How many hours of sleep had he gotten again? Not a lot… but he didn’t have time to be tired. Sonic needed him to be as strong and powerful as always.

Speaking of, the speedster cleared his throat. “You okay, Silver? We don’t need to do this now-”

“Of course we do,” Silver snapped back. “Ermanno and that lady are waiting for us!”

“I’m more trying to say that we can take a few minutes of rest first, if you need it. It doesn’t seem like there’s anyone around to kick us out.”

That Sonic was right about: had Silver been worried about them getting caught and removed off the premises, the premises seemed altogether abandoned. The wind whistled ominously between the silos and the buildings, and no people could be seen anywhere… “I guess everyone got scared off,” the psychic mused back, before bristling. “But that means we have to help right now! I don’t need rest.”  

Crossly Silver crossed his arms, glaring Sonic down as the speedster opened his mouth anew. He never let any tiredness or weariness impact how good he was at fighting. Silver would, in fact, rather collapse and faint from overexertion than give up before that because he was tired. No, his powers would just have to deal, and so would Sonic.

Green eyes regarded him all over, but eventually Sonic shrugged. “Well, if you’re sure. But if you need to tap out, please do so,” got added, in a gentle tone of voice that made Silver grouse only more. But mercifully Sonic’s gaze moved away from him next, scouring over the industry terrain as well. “So right now we’re plotting an ambush?”

“What? Of course not,” Silver retorted. “We’re coming in from behind and we're gonna fight whatever villain is causing trouble here. How can we ambush something that we don’t even know the place of?”

Sonic laughed, and Silver frowned at him… but the psychic found he couldn’t make it as miffed as he would have on Onyx Island or that other place. Sonic simply had a nice laugh. Plus, he laughed a lot, so Silver heard it a lot. He'd almost describe it as infectious, were it not that Silver didn't laugh much, and certainly not when trying to find and fight unknown enemies. “With your powers, you could catch people by surprise for sure,” got winked his way, which looked nice on Sonic too. And he winked as much as he laughed, so Silver saw that niceness a lot as well... There was something calming about Sonic’s presence when he looked so warm.

Still, Silver raised his shoulders with ample tenseness. Calming or not, they were on a mission. “Or I can just run up and start fighting the moment they show themselves. Works every time too.”

“Good point. And for that, I think we need to start… there.”

A gloved finger pointed to a most inconspicuous corner of the industry terrain. “There?” Silver echoed, glaring it down incredulously. He couldn’t see anything there!

…And yet, the more he stared, the worse the prickles on the backs of his hands got.

And perking up his ears made him certain he was hearing little shuffles and whirrs…!

“Robots,” Silver hissed lowly.

Sonic nodded. “Some of Eggman’s robots can turn invisible. I’m guessing robots here can as well?”

“Absolutely. Considering who made them, that’s not weird,” Silver responded with that familiar spark of burning hatred rising up in him like every time he thought about Eggman Nega. Though, that made him think next about his abilities, and a far smugger smirk tugged up his lips next. “But my powers can turn them visible again! Robots hate psychokinesis. Thus, it’s the best tool to use in every fight.”

One of those warm chuckles that told Silver he’d said something funny-in-a-not-bad-way followed. “Then I’m glad you’re right here with me for this battle,” Sonic responded. “Ermanno said that the competition is doing a lot better all of a sudden… Sounds to me like that invisible robot is lurking around here and stealing intel and spying on the goings-on to sell to other companies, or something like that. This is the future, so snazzy stuff like that seems pretty likely to me.”

“That man’s robots can do tons of really annoying things, yep.” Which made them most irking to deal with, though Silver pushed that thought away with a shake of his pelt. Irking, but never impossible. “Would make sense he sold them to some shady organisation for a quick buck or whatever. So we go to that corner and destroy it all!” he concluded, fist balling and a grin forming on his face. He was ready.

Sonic… called out something behind him in a whisper that sounded quite a bit more urgent than his previous ones, but Silver didn’t catch what it was as he jumped down and marched right over to the inconspicuous little spot. “Hey!!” he roared, canisters and crates and barrels taking to floating threateningly around him. “Show yourself!”

Nothing followed, other than a long silence. The wind fluttered around Silver, making his quills sway…

In one direction, actually…

With a gasp Silver tensed and jumped backwards, as the air tore all around and little sparks and zaps spawned multiple giant robots to life.

With crashes and heaves they landed on the ground, guns extended and bodies whirring. They towered over Silver, except… they were just the usual security mooks that could be found all around town and didn’t take much to go down. Silver scoffed; was this the big threat keeping the whole industry terrain in its grasp?! “There’s the backup!” Sonic’s voice rose up, the speedster landing beside Silver in a single bound. “Heh. You look eager to fight.”

“I always am.”

Sonic studied Silver from the corner of his eyes, for a moment… and then something shifted on his face and made his lips tug up, at the very corner. “Let’s see what we’re both capable of, then! Wanna make it a competition?” the speedster smirked his way next, still with that something that Silver could not place.

But would Silver have mulled over what it was, instead he flung a barrel at a robot trawling too close for comfort. With a heaving creak the mook got shattered into pieces, the barrel breaking open and its contents spilling all over the asphalt ground. “What competition is there? I’ll destroy more than you,” the psychic smugly grinned back. That right there was the Sonic he knew: always making everything into a battle with someone. But this time, they didn’t have to race through relatively unknown terrain while punching at each other! Instead Silver could easily hurl the items he’d picked up around, striking the robots lumbering closer straight in their cores and nodding contently as they fell to his might. This would be so easy.

But from beside him Sonic blasted off as well. One second he stood there, the next he had become a blur of blue and spikes zipping through the sky, leaving robots staggering all over as they got mowed right to the ground. And had Silver deemed himself the automatic victor in their little competition, suddenly the group of robots had quite thinned, and not solely from Silver’s efforts. Still, a: “You’re good at this!” got hollered from somewhere in the brawl, Silver merely shrugging. Flattering would not get him to lose. He had to concentrate on fighting and keeping enough ammo in stock, and staving off the prickling of his eyes on top.

And yet there was something interesting about Sonic and how he moved, and jumped, and never lingered where a robot tried to strike him, because he was simply too fast.

“So are you!” Silver yelled back, though between fighting off dozens of adversaries and studying Sonic his eyes did narrow. These mooks put up the most pitiful of fights, as expected. But where had that invisible robot gone? He and Sonic had both heard it and felt it, so it had to be there… Around the two of them more and more robots had been destroyed, metallic corpses and torn-apart wires littering the ground of the warehouse in puddles of oil, but Silver frowned as he didn’t see any that he knew could turn invisible. Robots always turned visible again when broken down, so surely neither he or Sonic had gotten it yet…

Amidst destroying one of the final metallic adversaries Silver listened sharply. It skittered, the guard had said, but there was too much noise-! Though with every robot fallen, that noise did quiet down more…

And slowly but surely gave way to a strange whistling sound behind him, softly and quietly but still there. Like the flitting of wings.

Ah hah.

With a grin Silver spun around on his heels, psychokinesis blossoming at his palms. “Think you can outsmart me?” he inquired smugly, cyan-coated hands casting out at his sides to blast any leftover robots away from him so he could focus. And then Silver pushed his hands onto the asphalt in one fell swoop as his powers raced out around him… and bumped into something.

The something staggered with a crackling buzz. In a second, the air shifted and flitted as a robot became visible…!

Silver had never seen a robot that looked like it before. His best description of it would be a robotic leafhopper, except with wings made of endless cables and eyes whose hexagonal units flickered with blue and green text and colours. Six legs skittered over the ground as it stabilised itself. And then its head shot up, right towards Silver, who bared his teeth back. The robot’s jaws snapped threateningly in turn as it crouched down, hind legs tensing…

And it jumped, rushing at Silver at a neckbreaking speed.

The psychic’s grin grew only more. With a hand outstretched he let his powers emanate from his fingers, primed and ready to grab this adversary and punt it right to a swift and unpleasant demise in the-

“Watch out!!”

Silver’s concentration shattered at Sonic’s roar. “Wh-” he began saying, flinching backwards as his body spun towards the source of the noise by instinct… before he yelled in full as a weight barrelled into his back. Fingers dug into his side and clawed into his skin there and tore him away from where he was standing, his legs got lifted off the ground, the world shifted as Silver’s body moved…!

A moment before an eardrum-shattering explosion resounded.

Silver, half-turned around as he was in Sonic’s movement, cried out and slapped a hand before his eyes at the flash of light and fire and heat. “Hold on!” the speedster cried out beside him. Both hedgehogs grunted as his feet struck the ground, a few skidding, stumbling steps taken before Sonic tumbled to a halt.

Silver found himself… awkwardly clamped against Sonic’s chest. One of his shoulders sat wrenched behind him from where it was stuck against Sonic’s belly, and Sonic’s fingers squeezed his other side most unpleasantly. But the psychic himself bungled frozen, staring at the place he’d been at nary a second ago.

Or what was left of it: billows of smoke rose up from dozens of yards away, thick and black as it coated the heavens. The fire clawed around rapidly over the puddles of oil that had broken from the barrels and leaked out of the robots…

“Yikes,” Silver succinctly summarised.

In one fell swoop, psychokinesis grabbed as much rubble as he could find, a split-second selection made between flammable materials and things he could use to cover up the fire. The latter Silver slammed down over ground, grimacing as the flames licked at his powers… but they did dissipate swiftly the longer he covered it up. Soon, only a few wayward fires burned still, and the wind battered at the thick plumes as they dissipated slowly.

It was only then that Silver noticed he sat wrenched against Sonic’s body still.

But before he could say anything, one swift movement placed him back on his feet. “You okay?” Sonic inquired, leaning in and rubbing Silver’s side. Somehow it made the ache from getting grabbed… dissipate, a soothing warmth in the motions that Silver could only stare at. Sonic seemed almost apologetic, jolting before he pulled away and stepped backwards. “You’re not hurt?” got added with a gesture to Silver’s general being.

Silver’s general being was quite surprised to find that having Sonic rub over his skin so gently had felt nice. “Er, no. I don’t think so,” the psychic responded slowly, own hand pressing down on the spot where Sonic had dragged him by.

Green eyes studied it for a second, before flitting up. “Sorry about that. I had to get us both out of there pronto.”

Staring at the smoke and the final little fires licking at the asphalt and robotic remains, Silver hummed slowly. “Leafhoppers… usually don’t do that,” he informed Sonic.

A snort was his response. “Meaning?”

“That madman didn’t even make them accurate.” Crossing his arms Silver hissed, eyes flicking about. Dumb robots that exploded were one thing, but dumb robots based on animals that did not have explosions in their arsenal of abilities? It made his blood boil.

Sonic, however, pulled a face as if he was trying his best to suppress noises of mirth. “That’s stupid of him!” Silver snapped at the look… and Sonic heaved out a chuckle in full, head averting.

“Yeah, it is,” followed with a little laugh. “But you gotta accept that evil villains and explosions go together like the sky and the clouds.”

“I guess,” Silver groused back. And thanks to that explosion, the industry terrain had found itself quite covered by dust and ashes, that psychokinesis swiped at to make it dissipate. Sonic had been sneezing so much in that GUN base, and it’d been dusty there too; what if the same befell him again now? Better be safe than sorry. And with the visibility clearing up Silver could also discern that no buildings seemed damaged, though some silos definitely stood less upright than before… Oh well, surely that GUN lady would understand things like this could happen. And Sonic didn’t say anything about it either as he and Silver stood surveilling the scene.

Speaking of Sonic…

“Why’d you grab me?” Silver spoke up, shooting the other a glare. “I had that! I could have thrown that thing into the ocean before it exploded with no issue!”

Sonic… grimaced. “Silver, I think that thing would have exploded the moment you snatched it,” got retorted. “And blown you up with it.”

“…How did you know it was gonna blow up?”

“I’ve got experience. When robots start buzzing and jumping at you like that, it’s usually a bad sign, heh. But it was already far too close to you for you grabbing it to have gone well.”

That was true, Silver could not deny it. Considering how far the fires and plumes of smoke had stretched, he’d absolutely have gotten caught in the blast radius if what Sonic said was true… Hm. “I’m fine,” he settled on. “…Thanks.”

Something flickered on Sonic’s face that Silver deemed to be surprise, but it went by so quickly that the psychic couldn’t determine it for sure. “Anytime,” got winked his way. “And look! Our little robot friend made a rather dumb choice with that.”

A broad gesture got sent towards the horizon, Silver following it. With the dust cloud having dissipated and the final fires burning out with some psychokinetic forcing, the air around the industry terrain had cleared anew. The scorched carcass of the robot, or what was left of it, laid twitching between the items Silver had flung down, with electricity crackling along its limbs and creaking groans resounding… until those slowed, and it snapped apart in full.

“…Hey, neat! We did it!” A broad grin formed on Silver’s face, his body shooting into the air to do some twirls. And without even blowing up the whole industry terrain! As big a victory as anyone could ask for, truly!

Beside Silver, Sonic pumped a fist into the air too with a noise of delight-

And then he held up his hand. “High five!”

Silver blinked. Sonic’s fingers stretched skyward, palm turned Silver’s way. “Oh. Sure,” the psychic nodded, shooting Sonic’s hand an amused look. His own could press against it nicely, before giving it a little smack. Just like how other people did when they were happy about something.

But Sonic raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never done a high five before?” got inquired as if it was a very grave misdemeanour indeed.

Silver shrugged. “Other people do them. Me, not so much. Or, well, never.”

“Well, we’ve got something to celebrate! You gotta slap with some more force!”

“More force?” Silver repeated, studying his hand before looking at Sonic’s. Well, if it was force that Sonic wanted, he could get it. The speedster stretched out his palm anew, nodding encouragingly as Silver moved his own as well, putting every single bit of his strength behind his swing…

A dual yelp followed as their hands slammed into each other, and pain blasted through Silver’s fingers and palm. “Ouch-!” Sonic squeaked, staggering backwards. “That’s too much force!”

“I just told you I’ve never done this before!” Silver yelled back, though more from the fact he was gingerly clutching his hand close than from annoyance. “Ow… Okay. High five. Yippee.”

Across from him, Sonic snorted. And as Silver looked up the speedster smiled that smile again, head shaking fondly. “Want to try a third time, except now with a medium amount of more force?”

“It’s not my fault your instructions are bad,” Silver huffed, deeming Sonic’s idea of holding up his other hand for this attempt to be a smart one and thus doing the same. So not soft, but also not extremely hard…

The way Sonic grinned and whooped in victory told Silver he’d struck the perfect amount of force for a high five as their palms collided anew.

“Just like that!” the speedster beamed. “And is your hand okay?”

“I’m not made of sugar.” Already the limb in question felt a lot better, and Silver rubbed one more circle into the mark on there before determining he was totally fine. “Are you okay?” he added, scrutinising Sonic all over. If Silver’s hand hurt already from the force of their overzealous high five, he could only presume Sonic was halfway to having to go to the hospital.

Sonic, who smiled in the kinda way people halfway to having to go to the hospital probably did not, winked at him. “Not made of sugar either.”

“That… Well, that’s good! I’m glad,” Silver responded, as he found himself a bit at a loss of what to say next. Sonic just looked very radiant like that, when he was amused. Usually people who were amused when Silver was around were subject to Silver getting very mad at them, because usually he couldn’t shake the feeling they were amused at him, but…

Sonic probably was amused at him. Their high five had failed due to Silver, after all. And yet… Sonic’s amusement didn’t seem mocking. Strange indeed.

But whatever it was, Silver shrugged it away in a second. They had more important things to consider, such as…

“Who destroyed more robots?” the psychic remembered, body jolting as he studied their battlefield and the carnage on there anew. Immediately he had to concede it was hard to tell, though: from studying the wreckages he couldn’t tell so easily whether a robot had been torn apart by Sonic or by psychokinetically getting pelted, and that fire had made everything even more mangled. Hm.

Perhaps Sonic knew how to figure this out, and Silver shot him an inquiring look… before blinking, slowly, at a twinkle in green eyes. “Heh,” Sonic smiled. “I think that was you, actually.”

“Was it? You were very fast. I think it was you,” Silver mused back, rubbing his chin. He’d completely forgotten to pay attention to it… but it could not be denied that Sonic had been zipping about and destroying robots faster than the speed of sound. And Silver would know how he moved and how fast that had been: he’d paid more attention to Sonic than to the robots Sonic had been destroying.

Which was most strange. Why would Sonic capture his attention like that?

Maybe because he’d only ever seen Sonic fight when he was fighting Silver, the psychic mulled next. Sonic didn’t get to be attractive in how he fought when the fighting happened through trying to punch Silver in the face. But now he’d been helping instead…

A little nudge against his shoulder made him jolt. “Earth to Silver?” Sonic remarked with amusement ringing through in his voice, Silver blinking back disturbed.

“I’m just thinking.”

“About who won?” That smile only broadened. “How about we settle on that we destroyed an equal amount? That seems very possible to me.”

“…That seems like you also don’t know,” Silver filled in dryly. But Sonic winked and grinned, and it dared make the edges of Silver’s lips pull up as well. He didn’t either, so it wouldn’t be fair to tell Sonic off for giving Silver a win where one wasn’t deserved. Nor could he tell Sonic off for making him smile… It felt nice. Like it was right to be smiling, for whatever reason. Maybe because Sonic just looked so happy when he smiled. But most quickly Silver shook his head again; they were still on a mission. “Let’s go back to Ermanno and that GUN lady and tell them the problem has been resolved. Pretty… efficiently.”

Sonic shot a look over the terrain, which was now made up for a not-insignificant part by a massive black-coloured patch filled with scorched robotic remains. “Let’s, yeah. The authorities can go clean this up and gather evidence, if they want.” And with that he turned around, Silver scanning the terrain one final time with narrowed eyes before determining there really wasn’t anything left anymore before flying up to join the other hedgehog. But instead of running Sonic ambled, one eye kept on Silver, and the psychic tipped his head back curiously.

Even if their trip back was spent in silence, it was a comfortable one.

One that made Silver wonder only more about what he thought he knew about Sonic, and what he’d been learning this whole day.

How strange indeed, the psychic pondered. He couldn’t exactly wrap his head around it, but in his thinking, he could conclude that perhaps there was something he should say to Sonic... Because Sonic had just spared Silver a ton of trouble. Hardy as the psychic was, he and his powers both would not come unscathed out of such a blast.

“Hey,” Silver piped up slowly. “Really, thanks for helping me out. I appreciate it.”

A surprised little look got sent over Sonic’s shoulder, before it softened. “Of course! I’m glad I could.”

“I’ll pay you back.”

“You saved my life first. I’m paying you back,” the retort came easy as could be, and Silver shook his head immediately in turn.

“Someone else could have helped you. There were infinite decades of timestream left for someone to find you and pluck you out. But you were the only one there to help me.”

“In those infinite decades of timestream, you were the one who helped me,” Sonic responded, so very incorrigibly, and that was how they walked back to the street corner with Ermanno and the GUN lady: playfully squabbling, and yet Silver didn’t get annoyed even a single time.

Somehow, in some way Silver didn’t understand and couldn’t make sense of, Sonic just kept catching him by surprise.

And Silver would be lying if he said he didn’t like it.

Chapter Text

“You’re still alive!” Ermanno gasped as Sonic and Silver arrived at the street corner where he and the GUN lady still stood.

Sonic stifled a snort. Beside him, Silver pulled a face most affronted. “Of course we are,” the psychic huffed back. “What, did you think we couldn’t do it?”

“That is of no concern in this moment,” the ice-cold reply from the ice-cold GUN lady cut through the air like a knife. “Update, now.”

With a roll of his eyes suppressed Sonic moved his hands onto his sides, head angling up so he could evenly meet the lady’s visor-covered gaze. “There was an invisible robot that we figure was stealing all the data and spying on people. It self-destructed when Silver fought it. There were more robots, that we all destroyed as well. A fire broke out, but Silver put it out immediately. Some clean-up has to happen and neither of us are injured,” he summarised the events of the past two hours or so. Some information in there would probably be more important to GUN than others, but he dared believe that a flicker of relief went over the lady’s face at that final statement.

“Good,” she nodded back stiffly all the same. “Thank you for helping out.”

“Yes, thank you!” Ermanno echoed, wringing his hands nervously. “I… I’m afraid I must already be on patrol again, but, er… Perhaps Agent Marcella here can give you something to thank you? We must!”

Silver, which Sonic perhaps should have seen coming, opened his mouth immediately. “We want to know where-” came out…!

Sonic grimaced and snatched his arm once again, before Silver could finish that sentence.

Any statement about Chaos Emeralds got morphed into a yelp as Sonic’s fingers curled around the bony limb and gave it a jostle. Though it made the psychic about five-hundred percent more likely to bite him, it was at least an effective way to shut him up. “Let’s give the good sir a second to get his bearings in order. He’s got places to be,” the speedster non-explained himself, doing his best to beam a look of apology to Silver through his eyes.

The other hedgehog tensed in his grasp… before snarling from the depths of his belly, sharp teeth gleaming as they got bared. The GUN agent raised an eyebrow immediately behind her visor, and Ermanno blinked as well with no small amount of surprise, but a nervous look got shot over his shoulder nary a heartbeat after. “Yes… Yes, you are right. All my fellow guards have been waiting for me for hours, so… Well, er, thanks again!”

And with that he turned around and all but bailed, Sonic humming as he watched the man’s retreating form. “I hope he doesn’t get scolded too badly,” he settled on, letting go of Silver with a light squeeze. It earned him a look of burning ire all the same, the psychic smoothing out the fur on his arm with an angry rub. “But we do actually need your help,” the speedster grabbed the second that encompassed Silver’s preoccupation to regard the GUN lady. “We’ve got a question to ask.”

Irritably the lady crossed her arms, a finger tapping on her other elbow. “Which is?”

This was it, and Sonic drew a deep breath. “Where,” he inquired as if he was merely casually asking this lady if she wanted tea or coffee and not if she could unveil one of the biggest secrets GUN could have, “is your main base located?”

The tapping froze immediately. “Why do you need that information?”

In Sonic’s one second of realisation that he and Silver had not discussed what to answer to that question, Silver opened his mouth anew. “Because we’re loo-”

“Because Silver,” Sonic cut him right off once more, “is… worried that the guy who keeps endangering the world is gonna come back, and we’re, well, thinking of ways to make sure he can… reach reinforcements as quickly as possible. Silver’s just one person whereas GUN is a whole organisation, so, you know, you won’t be able to find him as quickly as he can find you.” Narrowing his eyes a bit the speedster raised his head, challenging the woman with his glare as the truth stretched itself on his tongue. In the corner of his vision Sonic could make out a disbelieving look of shock on Silver’s face, which mercifully meant he wasn’t saying anything, and Sonic didn’t dare look at his pal and convey in some way that he was making things up on the spot. “Considering that robot infestation that we happened to be around for, just by pure dumb luck, I think it’s gotten underlined again how important it is to be ready.”

“…Hm. That is a good point,” the lady mused, rubbing her chin. “Even if we are detecting no traces of Dr. Robotnik right now, he is sly as can be. It would not be the first time he has… slipped through our fingers.”

“Still can’t believe you let him escape from a card,” Silver muttered. If it was meant to be under his breath, it failed badly.

Sonic shot him a glare of warning. “And the biggest reinforcements will be found in your main fortress, right?” the speedster trudged right on. “Silver’s tremendously fast, he can travel over the whole continent in nary… an… an hour, if it’s even that much. He can arrive there in no time should calamity strike. So where is it located?”

The lady studied them both. Silver stood bristling. Sonic did his best to emanate the most casual and collected vibes that also still willed Silver to keep their actual goal hidden just a bit longer. “Well…” followed pensively. “It would be treason to tell you, you two.”

“It’d be treason to ensure the world will be kept protected?” Sonic retorted, raising an eyebrow for emphasis. Hopefully this GUN employee had a conscience. “I was under the impression that was GUN’s main mission. You’ve got the world’s most powerful psychic to help you, but who’s to say you’ll be able to track him down in time when danger is threatening this world anew? Are you really willing to bet on being able to find him while GUN should be fighting off that danger, when it’s so much more easy for Silver to come to you instead?”

The lady’s face remained impossible to read behind her vizor. At least Silver seemed to be bristling less; instead he blinked at Sonic with what the speedster could have sworn was surprise. Though, both hedgehogs’ ears perked up as the lady tugged on her gloves, slowly… “That all is true…” got hummed out. What followed was a long, long silence, in which Silver mercifully kept quiet and in which Sonic tried his hardest to not look suspicious while keeping the silence tense enough still. Just a little more, and she’d crack…

The speedster stifled a flutter of relief as the lady’s back straightened. “Both of you, this information is not to be told to anyone else. Nor did you get it from me.”

“Never even talked to you,” Sonic nodded, as Silver went right back to his indignant spiking.  

In one fell swoop the lady pulled a little notebook from her pocket, scribbling down something before tearing the paper out and handing it to Silver. “Learn them by heart. Destroy this paper after. If you do not and this information leaks to any other person, no matter who, GUN’s punishment will be most swift and effective.” And then she leaned back anew, with a nod as stiff and frosty as her entire disposition. “We are done here. GUN owes you nothing.”

“Thanks,” Sonic grinned at her, though the lady said nothing else as she turned around. With that same ice-cold vibe around her she walked off into the street as well, the speedster averting his eyes. Even if GUN rarely honoured their promises, he’d keep his and leave the lady out of whatever would happen next.

Silent seconds stretched out between the two hedgehogs as Sonic watched the form of the lady grow smaller and smaller. “…Phew,” the speedster piped up, once he was sure she was out of earshot. “That went as well as it co-”

“Why did you interrupt me?!”

A cyan strike hit Sonic right in his stomach.

The speedster gasped and staggered, hand shooting to his belly by reflex to grasp it … and fingers tensing into his skin as Silver whirled around, sharp teeth bared and absolute fury burning away in his eyes. “I was talking to her! I had that!” the hedgehog snarled in a deep reverberating growl. Cyan coloured his pelt an eerie hue, and a wince ran through Sonic as psychokinesis coiled around his pal in ominous waves.

“Easy. Hear me out,” he huffed back, fingers pressing into the palm of his other hand in a time-out symbol. “You were going to tell that lady we’re looking for the Emeralds, weren’t you.”

“Yes! Because we are! And you said GUN kept them instead of letting them go!”

A wry little grin formed on Sonic’s face. “You are aware that she wouldn’t have given you any information if she knew that is the reason we want to get to the base, right?”

Had Silver balled his fists so tautly Sonic could hear his muscles creak and bared his teeth as if he wanted to tear Sonic’s skin apart… at Sonic’s words, golden eyes widened.

And genuine surprise flooded over Silver’s face.

“That- Why not?! It’s the truth!” the psychic sputtered back, an incredulous frowning twisting his angry features.  “You lied to her and now she thinks I’m gonna go work with GUN willingly! Never again in a million years! They suck. Can’t even keep a man who’s trapped in a card trapped in his stupid card!”

“They’re a powerful organisation to side with when there’s a true disaster striking. But other than that, I agree with you fully. They do suck,” Sonic agreed, studying the psychic closely as his mind took to racing.

Had Silver not realised that speaking said truth would most likely result in tons of trouble for them both?

Sonic hummed. If that was the case, then… “But Silver, truth or not, it’s something that GUN would not have wanted to hear. They won’t just give up their Emeralds willingly,” he added more gently. “I know GUN. Why abandon a whole base where you’ve seen the Emeralds before, and leave zero clues about where they could have been taken? Why not reach out to you to tell you the Emeralds have been let go, like you asked they would?”

At every word spoken Silver tensed more, his lips pursing and uncertainty clear on his face. A silence hung heavy in the air at the questions… “I don’t know,” the psychic eventually mumbled back, before those golden eyes narrowed anew and his voice rose right back into its normal volume. “And it doesn’t matter! We need those Emeralds, and they should give them to us, and you should have said that! I’m not working with GUN again!”

“You don’t have to. I doubt GUN would want to in the first place, after we raid the Emeralds right out of their base,” the speedster did his best to elaborate further. Not that he could fault Silver for not jumping for joy about GUN presuming he’d want to collaborate again in the future, but at the same time, Sonic had to stifle a sigh at the way the other bristled still. The tips of sharp teeth gleamed in the sunlight all over again…

Resolutely Sonic crossed his arms. “But considering everything that’s been going on with GUN and the Emeralds, just point-blank telling them we want those would have massively set us back,” he concluded with a single firm nod. “That’s what my gut feeling says, and it isn’t wrong very often.”

Silver’s expression twisted, the anger burning on there getting intermixed with something Sonic could have sworn was confusion. The other’s shoulders sat raised all the way up to his cheeks, an uncertain golden gaze glaring Sonic right down…

And then the psychic spat out a hiss, arms interlinking far more tautly than Sonic held his own and a back of sharp, raised quills getting turned Sonic’s way as Silver jerked around. But nothing else got said; Silver only shifted his hands, as if he was cradling himself more than conducting his body with anger.

Sonic frowned. Why was Silver so displeased and surprised? Because of the contents of the lie Sonic had spun, perhaps? It seemed like Silver had had some poor experiences with GUN before, to say the least. And Sonic had created his fake story while grabbing at Silver and speaking over him, despite knowing very well that the psychic quite disliked the former. And if Silver hadn’t at all realised that being honest would cause troubles, perhaps…

A little smile tugged at the corner of Sonic’s lips. Even if he did not know exactly what was going on, he did know a tried-and-true method to find out, that had worked its wonders on more people who were stubborn and snappy and angry.

“Hey,” Sonic gently piped up. “Why don’t we go sit somewhere, you and I, and we just talk about this?”

One grey-furred ear angled in Sonic’s direction. “Talk?” Silver repeated, a miffed golden glare getting sent over his shoulder. “What’s the point of that?”

“So we can explain our perspectives and you can tell me why you’re angry and I can explain why I did things the way I did,” Sonic chuckled. If Silver had never considered the possibility of talking things out before, his behaviour on both islands in the past made a lot more sense. “Is there somewhere quiet and calm around? Where we can talk more comfortably than at the corner of a street?”

Another silence stretched out… before Silver huffed, and jolted into movement towards an adjacent road. At a safe distance behind the other Sonic followed, the two hedgehogs rounding a couple of streetcorners and making their way through alleys and past crossings filled with chattering pedestrians and robots galore.

The more they walked, the louder the sounds of the ocean grew. And Sonic promptly whistled in awe as Silver led them around a massive skyscraper, and the sight of a little beach suddenly jumped into view. Though the streets had been comfortably crowded, this spot seemed quiet enough: the stairs at the beach’s edge that Silver flopped down on were entirely empty. “What a nice place,” Sonic beamed.

“Hmh.”

Not exactly the response he’d wanted, but Sonic also had yet to be flung into the ocean, and thus the speedster sunk down beside his companion. Quietly he let the wind and the smell of salt wash over his fur, studying Silver from the corner of his eye… And eventually Silver sucked in a deep breath through his nose, a scowl sent towards Sonic. “You wanted to talk. So, talk.”

Sonic thought for a moment. “You seemed surprised by me stating that telling the truth would have caused problems,” he opened the conversation. 

“It’s just-!” An angry shrug followed, cyan-coated fists clenching. “You cut me off, you grabbed me- Do you really think it would have been that bad to just be honest?! To just tell her we want the Emeralds, and if she wouldn’t give them to us, we’d attack her? Because that’s what I would have done!”

“There’s no way she had the Emeralds on her, Silver. Attacking her would have done nothing but tell GUN we want them, and giving them time to hide them from us better. And we wouldn’t have found out where GUN could be keeping them if you did that,” Sonic retorted with a fond little chuckle. The mental imagine of Silver getting the jump on that icy woman was a funny one, even if Sonic scolded himself amusedly for thinking so. As it stood his laugh elicited a most peeved snarl, and the speedster quickly composed himself. “And just telling her we want the Emeralds would have done the same thing,” he added, though Silver bared his teeth only more.

“You keep saying that! How do you know?!”

“So… Okay.” Quietly Sonic thought for a second or two, before leaning back on his hands. Perhaps if he just explained himself and what he thought of GUN to Silver… “I think that you can’t be honest with dishonest people, because they will use your honesty against you. What you tell them in good faith, they turn right around into hurting you or causing you trouble or just into something to laugh at you for,” he did his best to lay out. “Like… Don’t get me wrong, there’s very few people in the world who are like that, luckily. But GUN cannot be trusted. Secrecy and deceit is what keeps their whole organisation afloat. Just look at what they did with Shadow. Or take someone like Eggman! If I tell him that he annoys me, which is the truth, he’ll just delight in that. If I’m honest about him causing me pain or making me mad, it’ll just make him happy. And I don’t want him to be happy or delighting in me feeling bad, so I act like he can’t get to me, even if he sometimes does. I know it’s painful to have to accept you can’t be honest to everyone, but… You catch my drift?”

With every word spoken Silver seemed to become a bit smaller.

Golden eyes that had been glowering at Sonic averted to stare stoically at the waves in the distance instead, as the psychic huddled in on himself. Sonic let him, keeping quiet as well… “That… I mean, I guess, but… it feels wrong,” got mumbled out, eventually. “I wish everyone would always be honest to each other. Where would we be if everyone just lied all the time?”

“I understand that,” Sonic soothed. “And the thing is, I don’t like stretching the truth either! Yet it was necessary in this case. GUN’s moral backbone is made of cartilage.”

That statement… earned Sonic a strange look and another few seconds of silence. Silver’s face twisted in deep thought…

Before he snorted.

And the conflicted look that had been clouding his features seemed to lighten up, just a bit.

“Hmm. That’s a funny way to put it,” the psychic piped up, and Sonic winked back with a laugh of his own.

“I’m afraid it’s the most fitting, too. You said it yourself: GUN’s statements about protecting the world are feeble at best.”

Slowly the psychic rubbed over his cheek. “So you’re saying lying was needed because GUN is bad, like Eggman.”

“That’s a bit… Let’s put it like this: they’ve done a lot of bad things. They do have as aim to protect the world, but they care little about how much harm and trouble they cause on the way of achieving that.” With a sigh Sonic smiled at the other, a wry little one. “And I really do think that we wouldn’t have gotten the Emeralds if we’d just said to them that we want them. Things don’t add up, Silver.”

“…I guess it is weird. But that means that…” Silver mulled, trailing off as Sonic regarded him curiously. At least his friend didn’t hold his body so annoyedly anymore, with muscles so taut they could snap right in half. Even the cyan coating him, that had looked so eerie before, seemed more like a gentle illuminating glow now, like how the first stars in the evening sky shone. It definitely made Silver look more mellow…

But the other had something he wanted to say, and Sonic tipped his head to the side curiously. “It means?” he prodded as nothing followed up on Silver’s words.

Until Silver reared his head up in full, golden eyes staring right into Sonic’s.

“It means that everything would have gone wrong if I’d said what I was going to say,” the psychic murmured, the quiet in his voice an almost startling difference with his usual yells.  

Sonic found himself blinking at the intensity of that golden gaze. It reached the depths of his very soul, it felt like. He could make out every individual line and speckle of light yellow to darker amber that made up their colouration, and how each glowed in the afternoon sunlight. Definitely pretty to look at...

But less pretty were Silver’s words. They contained a heaviness, a dejectedness that made Sonic frown in sympathy. “Well, it would… probably have made things more difficult,” the speedster responded, not entirely sure what the best tone of voice to strike here was. Would Silver get mad if his words got affirmed, or hurt? Sonic couldn’t tell. Thus he smiled instead, shooting the other a warm look. “But hey, you didn’t say it in the end! So everything went just fine.”

“Because you stopped me,” Silver mulled only more, face contorting in the way Tails’ did when he was on the cusp of cracking a problem plaguing the scientific community for centuries. “But… Hmm.”

“I understand it feels wrong,” Sonic gently added. “And sorry for grabbing you like that, and interrupting you. It was the only way I could think of to make you, er… stop talking.”

That earned Sonic more rubs over Silver’s arm, the psychic huffing as his disposition fell right back into how it usually looked. “Don’t do it again. I’ll leave you stranded on the moon if you do, I swear it.”

“I won’t,” Sonic agreed before smirking. “Unless! It’s a true emergency.”

Silver’s nose gave an irked twitch. “Do I even want to know what you define as a true emergency?”

“Usually I define those as they happen, so I can’t say,” Sonic chuckled back. And promptly he had to concede that Silver looked cute when pouting, because the psychic pulled a frankly adorably miffed look before crossing his arms and rearing his head to the side pointedly. Even his mane seemed endearingly chagrined, considering its puffy and bristly appearance. “Hey now,” Sonic added with a wink. “Everything did go okay in the end, and we both learnt new things. That’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

“…I guess. But I don’t like that it almost went wrong entirely because of me.”

“But it didn’t.” Warmly Sonic shook his head, ears perked up for anything else that would follow… except Silver kept quiet after. And that left the two of them sitting side-by-side: Sonic while studying his pal, and Silver with his face shifting from miffed to just… thinking. Possibly uncertain thinking, Sonic figured by how his brows furrowed until the bridge of his eyes had just about tunnelled down to his mane and how little fangs pressed into his bottom lip for a moment…

“Hey, Silver, don’t beat yourself up over it, alright?” Sonic eventually piped up. “Everything really did go okay.”

“I’m not beating myself up,” followed in a far more affronted tone of voice immediately, as if Sonic had committed the most grand of social faux pas merely suggesting Silver could be feeling bad. Far more like the Silver he knew, Sonic chuckled to himself.

“Okay, good. I was worried you were worried.”

A firm shake of a grey-furred head was the response Sonic got. “I’m not.”

“But you are thinking. We can talk about what’s on your mind, if you want.”

“Just something you said,” Silver hummed… though eventually he shook his head once more. “No, it’s okay. It doesn’t matter.”

Sonic regarded him curiously, but Silver didn’t say anything else, and thus eventually the speedster smiled. “Then I won’t pry,” he responded, which earned him a wary look. But if Silver didn’t want to talk more, Sonic would not force it out of him either.

Instead the speedster focused on Silver’s hand, and the piece of paper he’d been given. The whole time they’d been talking it had sat clutched in his fist, and thus it’d gotten a mite crumpled and sad as Silver looked down, blinked with a jolt, and uncurled his fingers. “Oops. I’d almost forgotten about it,” the psychic remarked. Psychokinesis smoothed the little sheet out somewhat as it got lifted up in the air, and Silver’s eyes narrowed as he stared at it. “Though, what are we supposed to do with a… dumb piece of paper with some numbers on it?”

Peeking over as well, Sonic flicked an ear. “They’re coordinates.”

“Really? I thought that was just two numbers. This is six, and two letters and a bunch of symbols.”

“They’re more detailed that way. It’ll make it far easier to find the base, actually!”

“…Oh! That’s just what we need!” And promptly a little shine lit up in Silver’s eyes, the paper given a psychic poke. “So now you know where it is!”

“Er… Almost. I do need to unravel it first.” With a hum Sonic studied the paper and the neat handwriting of the GUN lady, though he immediately had to concede that knowing the latitude and the longitude of the GUN base was rather meaningless if he could not compare it to where he and Silver were right now. “I’ve got no idea of the coordinates of this city, so I can’t say where these ones lead to in relation to that. Tails would tell us in seconds with his gadgets, but I’ve got none with me. But that can be solved easily! You really like the library, right?” the speedster piped up…

Before laughing as that golden gaze studied him, Silver’s head tipping to the side. “Are you asking if we can go there because you’re worried that I’m feeling bad? Because I’m not,” the other responded hesitantly.

“Heh. No, I’m asking because we won’t be able to find that base without doing research first. Surely there’ll be lots of books with geographic regions and such, and we can decipher the coordinates with that,” Sonic responded, before his smile broadened. “But the fact that you like the library means I’d love to see it aside from that.”

“…Hmm. Well, it’s not far from here. I can show you around and we can get the information.”

“Sounds good. Lead the way?”

With a broad gesture to the road behind them Sonic grinned at Silver eagerly… before laughing as the psychic raised an eyebrow and jabbed a thumb towards the exact opposite direction than the one Sonic had gestured to. “Okay, okay. I’ll follow,” Sonic smiled, pushing himself upright.

Silver remained seated.

A hum of agreement did follow, though it got immediately succeeded by… a huge yawn. Sharp teeth gleamed in the afternoon sun, and Sonic decided not to mention he could send a nice look right into Silver’s stomach this way. “Let’s,” the psychic responded after multiple seconds, and that got followed by a deep, groan-eliciting stretch making its way through Silver’s whole body, the psychic’s fists raising skywards and chest curling outwards.

Warmly Sonic extended a hand.

It got regarded most scrutinisingly. “Another high five?” the psychic hummed, before moving up his own and – this time luckily not as violently – slapping his palm against Sonic’s.

And Sonic couldn’t help it: he laughed.

Promptly he got bristled at, the speedster shaking his head. “It’s called a down low like this,” he explained. “And it’s a joke that people pull their hand away before you can make contact, so be wary of that. But honestly, I just want to help tug you up.”  

“…Oh! That makes more sense.” Lightly Silver’s fingers grazed Sonic’s glove anew, this time remaining in place. Sonic’s own curled around them, giving them a little squeeze as he pulled Silver to his feet. They stood connected for just a moment or two, Silver’s hand light in Sonic’s and the other’s breath a warm gale against Sonic’s cheek…

“Thanks,” the psychic broke that silence first. Before yawning once again, rubbing at his eyes and blearily shaking his head.

But before Sonic could ask if Silver was doing alright, his pal had already tugged his hand back. With another stretch he turned around and paced up the stairs, before setting off into the streets with none of the briskness he’d been making his way to this beach with.

Hmm.

Pensively Sonic kicked into movement behind the other, though his mind immediately took to mulling. Silver hadn’t had enough sleep last night, that was certain: he’d laid underneath that tree so crumpled and bleary-eyed that there was no way he got five hours of sleep, let alone eight. And for a single night, that was no problem…

But Silver, Sonic easily concluded, seemed exactly like someone who just kept going, and going, and going, while digging himself only deeper into the hole that housed a sense of self-inflicted duty and honesty so strong it bordered on being harmful.

In other words: no way they’d go raid a GUN base today.

But that, and the memories of the entire discussion they’d been having just now, did immediately come with the caveat there was also no way Sonic could just say that to Silver.

The hedgehog in question kept marching along still, shoulders tense and body stiff as usual once more, and Sonic’s concern only grew as he quietly followed.

Perhaps at the library they could work something out.

Chapter Text

“Oh wow. I didn’t think the library would be so huge,” Sonic succinctly stated as he and Silver stood four streets away from the building in question, because that was the only way to see most of the ginormous glass dome that formed the roof.

Silver nodded, rubbing at his eye and forcing down yet another yawn. The library was located all the way across the city compared to where Ermanno and the GUN lady had been, and he and Sonic had been walking and occasionally talking for quite a while to get here. Far longer than Silver had wanted: it felt like the trip had taken them hours, and not just because the city was so grand. Sonic occasionally stopping to marvel at something or another hadn’t helped with being quick… though Silver had liked seeing him so interested in everything. Why, the psychic did not know, but multiple times it’d made him… smile?

And then frown, immediately after every moment he caught his lips having twitched up.

Well, it hadn’t been that often, in any case. And there wasn’t any room for smiling to begin with, because they were busy. “It’s massive. I’m always glad I can fly through it with my powers, because taking the stairs takes ages,” the psychic responded, craning his all the way back like Sonic’s was too so he could study the building as well. It blurred a bit around the edges, which Silver ignored. Sleep wasn’t important right now. They had to get that information and go raid the GUN base, quick, and thus Silver gestured for Sonic to follow as he stumbled into movement again.  “It’s got a dozen floors and three cellars,  and because humans need to make their way through too, everything’s pretty tall. That’s why the whole building looks so giant.”

“Let’s go see for ourselves,” Sonic winked, and in seconds the two hedgehogs had skedaddled their way past towering brick walls overflowing with plants to go inside.

“Welcome to the library that is also a botanic garden,” Silver stated very officially like the people at the desk always did too with new visitors. From said desk, Elisabetta who was typing away on a holoscreen laughed and waved at them both, which Sonic returned and Silver nodded back at. His ears had perked up the moment he’d set foot on the grandiose rug coating the wooden floor; they always did when he entered this specific building, which Elisabetta and the other staff often had to smile about for some reason. But how could they not, with all the plants sprawled about and the smells of nature intermingled with old paper filling the air?

Beside Silver, Sonic whistled. “Whoa. This looks even more amazing on the inside!”

“They have an extensive system that allows you to trade plants. You can bring in some of your own and take back others. There’s also a seed library,” Silver informed him, gesturing to the specific shelves in one corner of the ground floor that had been dedicated to that purpose. Many of his own saplings and sprouts and seeds had found a lovely new home here, with others finding a home at Silver’s place in turn. Also today an ample supply of pots stretched out over the length of the wall… but Sonic and Silver didn’t have time to go gander and gawk. They were on a mission and they had to find their information quick.

Sonic apparently missed that memo, however, because he meandered right over to stare. “Sonic,” Silver huffed, “we’re busy.”

“Busy looking at plants,” Sonic winked back at him. “Are there any you’d want to take along?”

With a sigh stifled Silver walked over as well; perhaps if he humoured Sonic, the other would come along quickly. “I really should not, I’ve got so many already. I hardly have the space for them in my hideout, and I can’t take any indoor plants because they won’t have a roof.” Fondly Silver trailed a finger over a pot that housed a citronella, before shaking his head. “Besides, a bunch of them were mine to begin with. Like that mint over there, and the carrot plant, and the tomatoes…”

With every word spoken, the smile on Sonic’s face seemed to grow a bit warmer. Weird. “It’s sweet that you bring them here for others to take,” the speedster stated, Silver shrugging.

“Well, I just don’t have the necessary room. Why wouldn’t I give them to other people who need them?” And that was enough chattering and Silver's patience had run out, the psychic decreed before plucking Sonic right off the ground with his psychokinesis. His powers did grumble at him for that, but Silver ignored their exhaustion. He’d just grab a couple of rings on the way to the GUN base later and replenish them with those. “There’s computers on every floor, and all floors have different sections with genres and stuff. So take your pick,” he dryly talked through the chuckled yelp that action elicited.

From the air, Sonic smirked at him. “How about we start with physical books first? For privacy reasons.”

“Privacy?”

“GUN’s a pretty big organisation,” the speedster nodded, voice dropping so low Silver had to make him float closer so he could hear. That did put Sonic right in his personal space, and Silver pointedly pinned the other’s hands as far away as possible so he couldn’t go be grabby again. If Sonic noticed, he didn’t comment on it. “It’d make sense to me that they’re monitoring the internet and stuff. Tails got defences against that on all his systems, but it might be suspicious if we go online and start looking for the specific coordinates where their base is located. If GUN is smart, they’ll be keeping an eye out for such actions specifically. Even if they think you're just looking it up so you know where they are, I'd rather not draw any attention towards us when we don't yet have our Emeralds,” got added instead in the quietest of whispers. “But they can’t monitor physical books. At least, I figure.”

Pensively Silver twitched an ear. That did make sense… “You were talking about geographic regions,” he recalled. “Geography’s on the third floor.”

“Sounds good. Float us up there?”

That Silver did; with Sonic bobbing behind him he turned around and made his way to the stairs, raising an eyebrow here and there at the amused looks Elisabetta and some of the other library staff they encountered sent his way. He didn’t see what was so funny: a look sent over his shoulder only revealed Sonic, who’d tumbled around enough in the air to float on his back with a leg crossed over the other. At least the speedster did seem truly in awe: his head turned around everywhere as he took everything in, curious hums and gestures to all the prettiness around following aplenty. “Look at those stairs,” Sonic grinned, reaching out to trail a finger over the ivy-covered balustrade.

“The people here take good care of the plants. They’re botanical experts, and you can see that very well in how the plants are growing,” Silver relayed, floating to the higher floors. Sonic couldn’t do anything but follow behind, until they’d reached the third floor and Silver placed him back onto the fancy carpet. “Here we are.”

“I’m surprised there’s so many books still. Considering this is the future, you’d expect everything to be online instead,” Sonic remarked, though Silver shook his head at that.

“A lot is, but people just like reading with an actual book in their hands. That’s why there’s so many of them. And why the library is so big.”

…So big, in fact, that Silver only knew this specific floor had an end because he could tell from the plant-covered walls all the way in the distance. And between that end and where he and Sonic stood, dozens of bookcases with hundreds of books on each stretched out in all directions.

Silver hummed, rubbing at his drooping eyelids. This could take a while.

Except Sonic smirked. “Allow me.”

“Hm?” Silver inquired… before jolting at the gust of wind that tugged at him, plants rustling and hanging pots clinking together as a whole cacophony of blue-hued breezes and gales took form in the walking paths between the shelves. Until those stopped as quickly as they started, with Sonic skidding to a halt in front of Silver anew… with in his hands a whole stack of books, piled up all the way to his nose.

“Here you go! These have the most promising titles.”

Silver blinked slowly, gaze trailing from the covers to Sonic’s cheeky green eyes above. “…Can you just read really fast, or something?”

“I can do everything fast,” Sonic grinned. “That includes reading if I want to. But that’s not much fun, so I only do it in scenarios like this.”

…Well, Silver shrugged, he might as well take that. “Thanks,” he settled on, grabbing half the books from the stack with his powers and trudging over to a bench to flop onto with a grunt. Sonic sunk down beside him with the other half of the books, and also a good half-meter distance between him and Silver, which the latter flicked his ears at appreciatively. He’d show Sonic how serious he had been about putting him on the moon should he inflict any more grabbing on Silver. But Sonic had grabbed a book instead, and with the piece of paper the GUN agent had given them plucked from grey-furred quills and placed between him and Sonic, Silver set to work also…

Before staring groggily at the various maps of the continents that the first book he opened contained. With slow movements Silver turned the pages, brows furrowing the more he studied each. All the maps had a whole bunch of numbers on their edges and a whole lot of lines… or at least Silver thought, because the harder he stared, the more everything blurred together in his vision. Crossly the psychic shook his head, hand balled into a fist that rubbed away at his eyes until they hurt. “How does this work?” he huffed, frowning at all the squares.

Sonic’s book contained similar maps as Silver peered over at him, a hum following. “You gotta do this strategically with the longitude and latitude,” got absentmindedly chattered, the pages turned with far more precision. “Start big… and then go smaller and smaller… until you’ve found…”

In one fell swoop the book turned around, and Sonic pressed a finger onto the page. “Here.”

With a bleary blink Silver shut his own book and carelessly flung it beside him before leaning closer. “Huh. That’s Sand Dune Zone, apparently one of the most unremarkable places on the globe and one of the most boringly-named.”

A warm laugh filled the air around Silver. “What makes it so unremarkable, other than the name?” Sonic smiled, and Silver frowned as he dragged all the info he had about the place from the corners of his mind.

“Well, it’s a massive nature reserve. People aren’t allowed in there because of that. So I guess it’s unremarkable because nobody really knows what it looks like on the inside.”

Sonic… nodded pensively. “Seems like you know a lot about it still, though.”

“Yeah, it’s got… nesting birds and rare insects and stuff, they say. That’s pretty cool, right?” Silver explained more, ears perking up… before they flopped right down again. “But sometimes it’s on the news that people get fined huge amounts of money for trespassing. They always get caught really quickly, somehow. I’ve never gone there myself because I don’t want to interrupt the animals, and a fine like that doesn’t really sound… nice. Right?”

With every word spoken, Sonic’s eyebrow raised a bit more.

A look got sent over a blue-furred shoulder, before the speedster leaned closer. He gestured for Silver to do the same… With a frown the psychic angled his head the tiniest bit down.

Before jolting at Sonic’s words.

“That,” the speedster murmured, “sounds exactly like a place where they could have hidden a GUN base.”

Silver blinked. Now that Sonic said it, it was odd how strict people were about the trespassing… But still. “That’s nice, but it’s Sand Dune Zone. There’s only sand there, and dunes, and the ocean. You think that is where GUN would put their headquarters?”

“The ocean would make it strategic. And something about that strictness doesn’t sit right with me,” Sonic shrugged back. “Do you know how to get there?”

With a flick of his ears Silver grabbed one side of the book the speedster was holding, Sonic moving back to a map that showed the whole continent. With some studying the psychic placed a finger on the spot where Sand Dune Zone was located, at the very south of the continent, before trailing it all the way northwards… “This is the city. And my hideout should be… about here,” the psychic noted, gesturing to both places. Both places that were not at all close to Sand Dune Zone… “It’s kinda far. But I guess the continent is just big.”

“Nothing you and I can’t travel in an hour at best. I’m the fastest thing alive, and you’re plenty fast too!” got winked his way.

“I suppose… Well, we’ll just have to go there and check it out. Let’s go!”

And promptly Silver turned around to leave, taking to the air and rushing down the flights of stairs to the entrance of the library. Elisabetta squeaked as he came racing past, but Silver merely waved goodbye. Eagerness brimmed inside him, tiredness forgotten in full as it got replaced by a rush of adrenalin. Finally, finally they’d be getting those Emeralds, and Sonic wouldn’t be stranded here in the future anymore-

Although, Sonic apparently was stranded on the third floor of the library, because he wasn’t behind Silver in his rapid-fire trip to the entrance.  

In one fell swoop, Silver retraced his flying path until he hovered in front of the other hedgehog again seconds later. “Sonic! I said: let’s go!”

An incorrigibly amused smirk got sent his way. “Hey, Silver, what time is it?”

“Er… It’s late.” With an incredulous frown of his own Silver turned around to look at the holographic clock placed against the wall. “Well, not that late. It’s like seven in the evening. Close to seven-thirty. Perfect time to go attack GUN bases!”

Sonic, however, had the gall to shake his head. “Yeah… no. I think GUN’s security won’t be any less stringent at night. We do need a bit of time to get there. Besides, how many hours of sleep have you had since rescuing me?”

“Enough to keep going.”

“I need numbers, Silver,” Sonic winked. “Two? Three? In no way enough to keep your concentration when fighting another battle?”

Silver bristled at him indignantly. As if his lack of sleep last night had in any way impacted his prowess in fighting off those robots at the industry terrain!

…But even the psychic had to concede his eyes prickled with exhaustion. Plus, stifling yawns had become quite a bit more difficult as well, with how peacefully quiet the library was. Surely Sonic had not noticed him forcing them down, though? Even if the speedster smiled altogether knowingly… hmpf. “Fine,” Silver groused at him. “First thing in the morning, then. And we’ll be up really early if we’re gonna fall asleep really early.”

“Sure, but after breakfast,” the utterly incorrigible response came. “Are we gonna go back to your hideout to rest?”

“We can sleep here. I stay over at the library more often if it’s freezing out, in winter. The people here always tell me they don’t want me to get hypothermia.” Which was also silly, because Silver’s mane and fur and blanket always kept him warm enough, or at least staved off the cold enough to allow him to sleep a little. But one winter of that had made Silver concede it wasn’t really a comfortable way of sleeping, and thus he’d taken the library staff up on the offer after just a few days. The little reading nooks each floor was equipped with and the blankets and pillows in there were always available for him, they’d assured him, and Sonic whistled in awe as Silver directed him to the one of the third floor. “The bean bag chair is very comfortable. You take that one,” the psychic ordered.

“Where will you sleep? That couch looks nice as well.”

“There, then,” Silver hummed, absentmindedly floating over and collapsing on the pillows as he failed to successfully stifle a yawn and a grunt. Maybe Sonic was right after all: he was tired, much as he hated it. Though, a strange scootching noise made him blink, a sleepy look sent over to the speedster. “What are you doing?”

“Getting a bit closer to you. Makes it easier to chat. Otherwise there’s such a distance between us, and that’s not nice,” got chuckled back from where Sonic dragged the bean bag chair over. It got deposited right by Silver’s head, the beads inside creaking as Sonic crashed onto them.

Silver raised an eyebrow at it all, before he shrugged. Not his problem what Sonic was up to. “Sure. You do whatever you like. Except chatting, ‘cuz I don’t want to,” he thus hummed, before curling into a snug little half-ball with his knees tucked up to his chest. They’d get those Emeralds tomorrow, then, and they’d be able to return Sonic home… In that regard, Silver understood well what Sonic was hinting at: he’d have to be as well-rested as possible to be of as much use as possible. Firmly the psychic shut his eyes. Sonic would just have to deal with a lack of chattiness.

So of course, after what had been seconds at best the bean bag crinkled again. Tiptoeing footsteps padded away, Silver’s ears flicking derogatorily at the noise. Leave it to Sonic to be unable to sit still and fall asleep. At this rate, Silver would have to go talk his ear off to get him to rest.

…But the footsteps halted at the edge of the reading nook, and some rustles followed, before they returned. Instead of halting at the beanbag, Sonic stepped two steps closer, stopping right beside Silver instead…

And warmth drew over Silver’s body.

“Hmm?” the psychic inquired, one eye opening.

Soft hands smoothed out the blanket Sonic had pulled over him, the edges tucked over his shoulders and underneath his boots. “There. So you don’t get cold,” the speedster smiled at him.

The fondness inside that smile hit Silver like a lightning strike.

“...Thanks?” he slowly responded. “You don’t have to.”

“I wanted to get one for myself anyway. Figured it’d be more comfortable for you too.” In one fell swoop Sonic dropped onto the bean bag again, under his own blanket. “Have sweet dreams,” got added warmly. “Tomorrow we will get those Emeralds, I promise.”

“…Thanks. Sleep well.”

And yet as he flopped his head onto the pillow, discomfort gripped Silver’s insides. Sonic had done something kind to him… again, after making sure he wouldn’t get injured today. And it wasn’t the only kind thing he’d done. Had Silver been mad about Sonic interrupting him and grabbing at him and spinning up lies on the spot, Sonic had explained extensively why he’d done all that. And, though Silver would have scoffed at the mere idea had he not experienced it himself, the other’s words did make sense. They had stung, sure, and the idea Silver had almost ruined everything had felt bad, but Sonic hadn’t seemed mad about it at all. He’d even called Silver the world’s most powerful psychic…

But the reasons why Sonic was being so nice kept evading Silver. Maybe Sonic was just like that? It truly didn’t seem like he was fishing for Silver’s help more. Heck, Sonic had offered to take Silver along on the adventure to find the Emeralds and get him home, but he’d been perfectly okay with going on his own as well.

So what was it?

“You wanted to chat,” Silver piped up slowly.

One green eye opened to peek at him. “You don’t. You’re tired; you should get some rest.”

“I can chat for a bit. It’s still really early.” Stubbornly turning around to flop his cheek onto the couch’s pillows so he could see Sonic Silver studied him all over. “What do you want to talk about?”

Sonic chuckled. “Well… How about the future? No way I can see all of it before we get our Emeralds from GUN. What’s your life here like?”

“It’s nothing remarkable, I think.”

“I want to hear all about it.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s how you live.”

Huh, Silver mused. That was a reason he didn’t understand in the slightest. But Sonic looked at him so encouragingly, he couldn’t find it in himself to decline. “Well… I’m just keeping an eye on things, mostly. Fighting robots, helping people out… There’s not a lot of action, but there’s enough that I need to keep fighting. It’s my responsibility,” the psychic thus explained, face sinking into the most determined of frowns. He’d protect his era with his life, he’d always sworn it.

Beside him, Sonic hummed. “Is that why you went to the past twice? I didn’t hear anything about any other people from your era doing so.”

“Yeah. I didn’t want anyone else to have to carry that burden. And getting help from people and figuring out what to do takes so much time, and I didn’t have time with the whole world in jeopardy like that. Besides, I’ve been fighting that man for ages. Time-travelling to the past honestly didn’t faze me in the slightest.”

Sonic… laughed again in that way that made Silver figure the speedster thought his statements were funny without actually making fun of him. “You’re a brave guy, Silver,” got winked his way. “But what if things are not in danger here? What do you do then?”

“…Really just the same as when there is danger,” Silver responded, after a few seconds of silence in which he pondered that over extensively. “You know, just… looking after people- Oh! I garden, and I go visit Chao and stuff. That’s relaxing things. And I go to my job.”

That elicited a surprised snorting noise. “You’ve got a job?”

“Yeah. I help deliver mail. I don’t want to get food without paying for it, and having a job is more reliable than going into the wilderness and hoping there’s rings there,” Silver shrugged back, before frowning at the eager smile sent his way.

“Mail delivering? That sounds amazing!”

“It’s pretty cool. I can float everything over the canals easily, that’s why Foreman Marco and all the staff say they’re very happy with me,” Silver responded, chest puffing up with pride. Psychokinesis truly was the answer to everything, and that included something as banal as delivering mail. “What do you do in a day, then?” he added, regarding Sonic more curiously. Sonic seemed pretty surprised by how Silver was living, so what did he spend his time on?

“I run to wherever my heart takes me,” that turned out to be.

An incredulous frown formed on Silver’s face. “Hm. And what if there is danger? If people are in trouble?”

“Then my heart takes me there. I’m happy to lend a hand, but I’m also happy to just… explore wherever. Just run,” Sonic smiled.

His eyes shone.

Sonic really liked running, Silver easily concluded. Maybe that was why he’d been so eager to go chase down Emeralds in Mountain River Zone. Still, that didn’t exactly sound like Sonic was actively keeping an eye on things and making sure Eggman couldn’t cause any harm…

“And I’m also happy to hang out with my friends! Sometimes they join me on adventures, or sometimes we all just hang out and have fun,” the speedster meanwhile chattered on before Silver could ask about that. “Tails and I host sleepovers sometimes. Like you and I are doing now!”

“A sleepover?” Silver echoed, ears twitching. “I’ve never been to any.”

“You haven’t? My friends and I throw some on occasion. You should join one one day! We all don’t live very far away from each other: Tails has a house in Emerald Town that I crash at often, and Station Square and Central City are really close to that. That’s where Amy and Rouge live, respectively. And Cream’s got a cute house with her mom in a little village, and the Chaotix live nearby as well… Though, any distance is easy to travel for me, heh. And then on our sleepovers we get snacks, and watch movies, and talk until midnight, and we all drag mattresses into the living room and get all the pillows and blankets from around whatever house we’re in. And then we party all night and go to sleep only when the sun is up.”

Quietly Silver listened. Sonic talked so vividly; it was almost like Silver could imagine being right there, with so many other people…

Would it be fun to be there? Was that the fun Sonic talked about, that he also felt when going on adventures?

Considering Silver actively refused to believe that adventures could be fun, he promptly shoved that thought out of his mind.

“It sounds like a good time,” he said instead, while stifling another yawn. Two hours of sleep last night had taken it out of him, much as he hated to admit it…

And Sonic smiled. “You gotta get some shut-eye, Silver.”

“Hmhm. So do you.”

“I will. You comfy?”

“…Yeah. You too?”

“Absolutely.” The beanbag crinkled as Sonic scooted down more. “Have sweet dreams,” got winked Silver’s way. “If there’s anything, wake me up.”

“Yeah… Will do. And same for when you need me!” Silver responded, head flopping onto the couch’s pillow as he huddled more snugly under the blanket, ready to let sleep finally claim him.

…And yet Sonic’s breaths had long evened out as Silver laid staring at the sofa’s cushions, and the ceiling, and the walls, and the bean bag with Sonic in it, and throughout it all he was wide awake still.

Why did Sonic seem so fond of him? Why was he so concerned with Silver’s well-being? It made for yet another surprise about the speedster…

And it felt nice.

He had to find a way to return that kindness to the other, Silver swore to himself, and only after extensively studying Sonic’s sleeping features had he become tired enough anew to let sleep overtake him too.

Chapter Text

As it turned out, Silver was quite endearing to regard while he slept.

With a smile at the look of deathly seriousness that marred the other’s features in his rest Sonic laid as quietly as possible on the library’s beanbag chair. Silver’s ears were raised up high; any wrong move, and the noise would surely wake him. Thus, Sonic kept himself entertained by studying those features to a T: the deep creasing of Silver’s brows, the way the bridge of his eyes formed a chasm of unparallelled severity, how his breaths were light and quiet…  

If only he could reach out and smooth those features into something more relaxed, Sonic pondered. Nobody deserved to be this… bothered, when sleeping.

Or when awake, for that matter. And speaking of awake, the time that Silver had to be woken up was fast approaching. The morning sun had steadily been climbing out of the horizon the longer Sonic had been sitting here without daring to make a peep, and with that, surely Silver’s temper would steadily rise into exploding too the longer Sonic waited with rousing him. “Hey, Silver?” Sonic thus called out to him in a whisper, that immediately made grey-furred ears shoot over to his direction. At the sound Silver shifted, something akin to a groan oozing with drowsiness filling the air. It’d take some effort to wake Silver up fully, Sonic figured with a laugh. His poor friend clearly hadn’t been getting enough rest these past two nights. “Morning, sleepyhead,” Sonic added, pushing himself up from the beanbag as quietly as he could. “Did you have sweet dreams?”

“Hmhm,” got yawned out. Silver’s nose gave little twitches… Endearing indeed. With tender touches Sonic tucked the blanket more snugly over Silver’s shoulders, which earned him a bleary look from bleary golden eyes. “Hm?”

“So you don’t get cold,” Sonic told him. “Take your time to wake up. We got the whole day ahead of us.”

As he maybe should have expected, Silver began fussing immediately. In seconds the psychic sat upright… or at least he sat in a way that could be mistaken for him being awake. “Or you can do that,” Sonic settled on with a chuckle. “Relax, Silver. Really. It’s okay.”

Some more mumbles followed, Silver’s head toppling from left to right. Sonic flopped beside him on the sofa, stifling a laugh at how balled fists rubbed drowsy circles over a tan muzzle. “G’morning,” the psychic managed to bring out amidst a yawn.

“Good morning,” Sonic chipperly repeated.

“D’you sleep okay…?”

“Absolutely! Raring to go.” Which Silver very much was not, and Sonic discreetly pulled the blanket over him more. Silver huddled deeper underneath it, body shifting so his head rested against the sofa’s backrest…

Which also put him right against Sonic.

“Hey, Silver, you don’t like getting touched,” the speedster chuckled out.

Grey ears gave a disapproving twitch at those words. With shifts and scoots galore Silver sunk down more and also further sideways, until he all but blanketed half of Sonic’s body. His face had flopped right against Sonic’s shoulder and neck... “I don’t like getting grabbed,” got huffed out into short blue fur.

With a laugh stifled Sonic shook his head. “Alright, alright. But don’t get mad at me for being in your personal space when you wake up,” he teased, which earned him a murr and nothing else. If Silver would just fall asleep again, Sonic could say with full honesty he had tried waking him, and it had been clear the psychic just needed more rest. With very light touches the speedster moved one hand up to rub behind those little ears; that always worked to get Tails tired, and Tails gladly used it in turn to get Sonic tired as well, so perhaps…

Except Silver’s next words made any touch, movement, breath and motion freeze.

“You’re being so nice to me,” the psychic mumbled out. “Why?”

Sonic blinked. “Why not?” the response slipped past his lips before even thinking of it. Sure, he was being nice, in part because not being nice to Silver made the other quite not-nice in turn… but also, Sonic wouldn’t say he had a reason to not be nice to Silver in the first place. His pal did make good company. “You’re just nice to hang out with. And you’re nice to me as well!” the speedster added with a fond chuckle.

“Hm. I thought you didn’t care about what I had to say… but then you said we had to talk. ‘n You listened to me,” Sonic could semi-decipher from the things Silver responded into his shoulder blade, a tad muffled into the fur and skin.

“I do care about what you have to say, Silver. And talking is good. You can’t know what’s going on with other people if they don’t talk to you about it.” With slow movements Sonic rubbed a circle behind one tiny ear; perhaps if they just kept talking now too, Silver would doze off again.

The most adorable little purr rumbled in the very depths of Silver’s chest. A sigh of contentment followed, the breath warm in Sonic’s pelt. This was going from endearing straight to adorable, the speedster cooed to himself. Who knew Silver could be so soft and snuggly? Though, the other did stir anew, his head shifting up a bit so Sonic’s eyes could meet droopy gold ones. “And you said I’m the world’s most powerful psychic,” got added… and Sonic jolted as he remembered.

“Oh! Yes, I did say that,” he agreed, gaze drifting down to Silver’s hands with those cyan symbols on them. Somehow they had found their way to Sonic’s belly, where gloved fingers lightly clutched the peach fur. “And I think you are,” the speedster added with a little laugh, a black nose twitching against him.

“Really…?”

“Absolutely!”

Silver shifted more. A big yawn followed, accompanied by a shake of the other’s head as he hazily regarded Sonic. “How do you know that?” the psychic inquired, with a twinge more lucidity in his voice. “I am, but I never told you I am. So how did you figure that out?”

“The things you can do with your powers are nothing short of amazing,” Sonic, who wondered how Silver had verified that he was indeed, irrevocably and with one hundred percent certainty, the world’s most powerful psychic, smiled at him. “It makes sense to me that you’re the most powerful, heh.”

Golden eyes drifted down too to where Silver’s hands laid snuggling the fur on Sonic’s belly. “That… is nice of you. Thanks.”

“Of course! You were amazing fighting those robots.” And Silver had been, Sonic concluded the more he thought about it. Grandiose movements and clever throws of caught adversaries had left the robot army in disarray quicker than Sonic could blast off, it had felt like. No, it only seemed fair to the speedster that Silver had contributed at least as much as Sonic had, if not more, with how good his powers were at controlling crowds. But Sonic was smart enough to know a discussion about that with Silver would never be concluded with a concise winner either, and thus he kept his opinions to himself.

And Silver was waking up more by the second, though he still laid draped against Sonic like a lion contently slumbering away on the savannah during a hot day. “And of course I’m being nice to you,” the speedster added. “I like hanging out with you. And you saved my life! And even if you hadn’t, or I hadn’t saved yours, we can still be nice to each other. Right?”

That earned him a frown and a half-hearted shrug. Maybe Silver didn’t think that was the case, Sonic pondered. After all, the psychic hadn’t exactly been nice all the previous times they’d met. He’d been busy with protecting the world, apparently, and maybe he’d just been stressed…

At least he was being more agreeable now. It actually was quite enjoyable to spend time with Silver when it came to quieter moments like these, or yesterday evening when they just chatted. There was something endearing about how Silver tackled the world, something charming in his eagle-sharp concentration and focus on making things right. And he talked directly and thought directly; far preferable over people endlessly waffling on with half-truths while refusing to get to the point. And the contrast between how he acted usually versus how he rested now, huddled under the blanket Sonic had tucked him into and half-curled into a blue side, couldn’t be greater, either. Grey ears gave slow twitches, and something softer and quieter had set in Silver’s features; Sonic had never seen it on him while he was awake.

And yet, the fact Silver could act like this and be like this didn’t surprise Sonic as much as he would have thought.

But it meant Silver was awake enough to show this side of him, and thus Sonic gave the both of them a little jostle. “It’s morning,” he smiled. “Should I get the both of us breakfast somewhere?”

“Breakfast?” Silver echoed, rubbing at his eyes…

And then his head snapped up and his whole body tensed.

“It’s morning?!” got hollered out at Silver’s usual volume, and Sonic’s body flinched by reflex at the sounds assaulting him.

“Yeah…?” the speedster warily retorted. “It’s still early- Hey!”

Navy boots kicked at the blanket, Silver scrambling and floundering until he’d escaped from its snuggly confines and Sonic’s poor side got blasted with cold. In one fell swoop the psychic jumped up from the couch and marched over to the window. “The sun has been out for hours!” followed, in an incredulous cry.

Sonic hummed slowly. “That… doesn’t make it any less morning. It’s still before noon.”

“We could have been at the GUN base already!” Silver bristled, head snapping around and golden eyes glaring a hole into Sonic. “Why didn’t you wake me?!”

“You were sleeping really peacefully. I figured you needed the rest.”

“We’re on a mission! Bad guys don’t rest!!”

“Silver, relax,” Sonic settled on, doing his best to smile and wink as disarmingly as possible. There was that other, far more present and noticeable side of Silver once again… The discrepancy between the two was difficult to not snort at. “We’re in no hurry. And we gotta eat something first, because I’m starving.”

Silver squared up his shoulders, mouth flying open as if a protest were to be catapulted out at sonic speed. Something about his friends, Sonic figured, or maybe Eggman or the fact the past was in danger, or how he didn’t want Sonic to be stuck here for longer than needed; all things that they’d been over already. And indeed, after a few seconds of staring, Silver snapped his mouth shut again-

…And turned his head away?

“Fine,” followed in a grumble. “If you’re that hungry.”

Sonic fought down a surprised flick of his ears. He’d been prepared to argue with Silver on this topic for minutes, if not the entire day… but the other had relented. Clearly unhappily, but relented all the same. “A hundred percent,” Sonic smiled back. “We will go to that GUN base as soon as possible, I promise. But do you know where we can get food?”

“There’s supermarkets, and cafes… Markets in the mornings… We’ll find something! Let’s just go!”

And with that Silver whirled around, and he’d already raced down the stairs in the two seconds it took Sonic to push himself to his feet. The resulting gust of wind that battered at Sonic made the speedster shake his head with a fond chuckle. “You know,” he mused to no-one in particular, “I’m sure Tails will be charmed to know there’s someone out there who is more impatient than I am.”

But Silver was also right in that they needed those Emeralds. “Wait up, Silver!” Sonic thus called out, making his way to the stairs as well. With a little jog he descended, the stairs so long and extensive it’d take a slower person minutes to climb up and down. Sonic didn’t want to take minutes, but he didn’t want to hurry either…

Because one floor below, Silver had been caught in conversation with a lady dressed in a fancy outfit standing beside a cart for book transport, cyan-hued books flying around between the shelves in what could best be described as a psychic tornado quickly diminishing in size.

“Thank you, dearie,” got smiled Silver’s way as the last item got placed, the psychic shrugging.

“Anytime. But I’m in a hurry, so if you’d just excuse me-!”

…And immediately he blasted off anew to the next flight of stairs, Sonic stifling a snort as the lady laughed. “My, Silver is always so busy,” she winked at him, Sonic nodding curiously.

“He helps out a lot here?”

“Oh, whenever he’s around. He sees you walk with something that can be done with those powers of his, and he’s already pulled it out of your hands and handled it before you can either ask him or tell him it’s not needed.” Fondly the woman chuckled, before grabbing the cart anew and rolling it away. “Psychokinesis is truly marvellous!” she called out over her shoulder, waving at Sonic one last time. 

That Sonic could only agree with, and he figured many of the library staff did the same… because also on the second floor, and the first, and then the entrance, Silver seemed to be preoccupied with something. Mostly moving items around with psychokinesis, it seemed to Sonic as he ambled down each flight of stairs. But every time Silver’s actions got met with a smile, and every time the psychic waved any gratitude away immediately before he raced away to the floor underneath and clearly found himself caught in a new spot where help could be offered.

“Good morning,” the girl from yesterday greeted from behind the desk as Sonic trotted down the last few steps of the stairs that made way towards the building’s entrance. “Sorry, Silver asked if the plants needed water and then already ran off to do so before I could answer.”

Sonic gestured towards the first floor above him. “That seems to be something he does often.”

“All the time. We’re always happy with the help,” the girl agreed. “I do hope he’s not burning himself out with it, but… Ah, on that topic, aren’t the two of you in a hurry? Silver only comes running by so hectically when he’s got something to do. Which is... often, but...”

“Only a moderate hurry, no worries,” Sonic responded cheekily, jogging the distance to the doors and stifling a laugh at the sight of three different watering cans psychokinetically watering all the plants at neck-breaking speeds at the ground floor’s plant corner. With a wave to the girl Sonic padded over, ducking underneath the items haphazardly getting put away again and shooting Silver a warm look. “Have you ever noticed that the people here adore you?”

“Sonic! What took you so long?!” got bristled his way, with no further regard for Sonic’s compliment. “Let’s go!”

“Just taking my time,” Sonic winked back, which made the psychic bristle only more. Silver whirled around, flinging open the doors of the library with his powers and darting outside onto the street…

The busy street. Whole troves of people and robots alike came by on the pavement, chatting with each other or listening to music or watching the news on little holographic screens with half an eye or just walking. The attached road sat full of cars and bikes and hoverboards and buses, that drove by slowly but steadily. The combination of talking and traffic and the noises that generally accompanied large masses of people made for a bustling atmosphere indeed. Yesterday Sonic hadn’t quite seen anything like it. “It’s hectic here!” the speedster hollered to be heard over the noise as he stepped closer to Silver.

Who… stood stiff as a board in the entrance of the library. “Morning traffic,” got yelled back. “It’s a weekday, so everyone’s going to their jobs or into the city to buy stuff!”

“I see,” Sonic responded, darting to the side so he would not get swept along in the crowds. “Where can we go best for food? What place did you have in mind?”

“Er… Over there. That street’s a bit quieter,” Silver muttered, gesturing past the plaza to some alleyway. “Across from there is where the market is held, in another square. That’s… also busy, but this is the main street for traffic, so…”

Poor Silver, Sonic mused. He didn’t seem particularly happy to be caught in the masses like this. In fact, he seemed to be most displeased by it, ears held up stiffly and eyes shooting all over. But as Sonic looked too, he saw nothing that could indicate danger… “Hey,” the speedster smiled, leaning closer so he could talk more softly while keeping a sharp eye on not being too close to his friend. “I’m the champion of weaving my way through crowds. You can hold my hand and I can tug you along if you want?”

Silver looked at him as if Sonic had suggested they go jump in a crocodile-invested ocean for fun, while Sonic had also grown two extra heads and been overtaken by scales. “You’re gonna throw yourself in there?! I can just fly us over!” got sputtered back.

“That’ll definitely cause a spectacle,” Sonic brought up. Considering how much Silver didn’t seem to like the crowdedness of the street, a spectacle was the last thing they needed right now. “And we can’t stand here for hours. We’re a bit in the way.”

The frown on Silver’s face only deepened. That would not do either… “Silver,” the speedster thus murmured, leaning closer. “I want to help you, but you’ll have to let me. Okay?”

“That… I guess, but…”

“Do you trust me?”

Silver stared. Sonic blinked back warmly at him. His friend blinked in turn, before his eyes darted to the street, back to Sonic, and his mouth opened, and shut again… and the psychic gave his head a little shake and that surprised look on his face morphed back into his usual severity. “I’ve… trusted people less.”

“Good enough for me.” With a wink Sonic held out a hand. It got stared at as if it would detach and push Silver right into that crocodile-invested ocean, wariness and conflict stirring on the psychic’s face…

But despite that, his own hand extended ever so slowly.

A gentle cool brushed over Sonic’s palm as Silver’s touched it.

“Let’s go,” Silver breathed, bracing himself, and Sonic made sure their fingers were interlinked firmly as he waited for an opening between the people and pulled the both of them inside the masses.

All in all, someone with his speed and dexterity needed only four, five seconds to weave over the world’s most crowded plaza to the other side without outright bowling anyone over. With someone to guide along, it took a few more, but Sonic still praised himself on a job well done as he tugged Silver into the alleyway swift as the wind and the noises of the crowds quieted down somewhat. “There we go!” the speedster grinned in victory, one fist pumping into the air.

“…Huh.” With a wary twitch of his ears Silver looked over his shoulder… before his body relaxed, ever so slowly. “That definitely was less conspicuous than flying.”

“The perks of being fast. You okay?”

“Yeah… yeah! I’m fine.” Vehemently Silver nodded, peeking up…

And once again, Sonic caught himself mesmerised by the way he got regarded.

Silver doing everything intently and passionately seemed to include looking at Sonic like there was nothing and nobody else in the world except him, it seemed like. Had Sonic been regarding Silver in turn to see if the psychic was okay, now the sheer intensity of that golden gaze almost made his eyes avert and cheeks darken. But that’d be silly, the speedster snorted to himself. Intense was just what Silver was like. It definitely wasn’t the first time Silver had glared a hole through him; Sonic and everyone else had been endlessly leered at on those two islands as well.

And yet...

How Silver looked at Sonic now wasn’t glaring in the slightest. Instead Sonic’s heart leapt in the strangest, silliest little twirl as that golden gaze seemed to soften. “Thank you,” Silver hummed, and Sonic could have sworn it got accompanied by the smallest of smiles.

With a strange sense of great haste Sonic's mouth flew open. "Anytime!" came rushing out faster than he could blast off... which made him frown in surprise, Silver’s head tipping to the side and Sonic giving his own a little shake. That earnestness on Silver’s face and how he stood and conducted himself just made the speedster feel odd, in some way he couldn’t place. Perhaps it was simply nice to know his efforts were fully and undoubtedly appreciated. “Where’s that markets of yours?” Sonic quickly added, peeking around.

“Ah... Right there.”

A gesture behind Sonic followed, towards another plaza that turned out to be a bit more empty as Sonic turned into the indicated direction. With Silver in the lead the two of them made their way out of the alley and onto the open space, that was filled with crowds of people and chattering anew. But Silver was right: it definitely wasn’t as busy and full of commuters as it had been around the library.

Sonic beamed as he studied the street down to the smallest details, whistling in awe at the canal that sprawled out beside it and the grey cobblestones he and Silver padded over. “This place is so quaint. I love it!” the speedster smiled. Adorable little gondolas laid moored to the edge of the canal’s walls, bopping up and down on the waves. On the other side vendors cried out from their stalls, people hustling and bustling all over, and Sonic was living it.

In their walking Silver had put himself between Sonic and the canal, which meant he teetered right on the edge of falling into the water, but a worried look from Sonic at his feet got waved away immediately. “I can fly, remember?” the psychic brought up, Sonic humming back amusedly.

“I know. But it wouldn’t do for you to end up soaked in case you get distracted.”

“I’m never distracted,” the deathly serious response came- and then Silver’s ears perked up and golden eyes shot right over to a little stall in the distance, between some others. “Oh! The caramelised apples!”

Sonic stifled a laugh. “Come again?”

“Elio sells the best caramelised apples. And baked apples, and fried apples, and chocolate apples, and just normal apples,” Silver explained. “They’re really tasty!”

“Sounds like breakfast! Can we get some?” Sonic suggested, Silver eagerly nodding…

Before it faltered. “Oh. I don’t have any money on me. So we can’t.”

“I do!” Sonic’s ears shot right up. “I’ve got rings for the Special Stage, remember?”

Warily he got regarded. “But don’t you need those for the Special Stage?”

“That was a bust,” the speedster shrugged back. “Besides, we got a different lead now. Let’s go get you an apple.”

Silver, as Sonic had entirely anticipated, opened his mouth and produced a whole slew of protests that the speedster conveniently could not listen to, because he’d already darted off to the stall in question. A jovial-looking man with a fancy moustache shot a grin back as Sonic waved at him, the speedster rearing up at his tiptoes to look through the glass in front of the goods. “Hello! Two caramelised apples, please,” he ordered, stifling a laugh of his own at Silver rushing in too.

“You don’t have to!”

“Hello there, Silver,” the man greeted, golden eyes peering at him glumly.

“Hey, Elio.”

Elio calmly opened a paper bag. “Who’s your friend?”

“Friend-? Oh! This is Sonic.”

“Sonic the Hedgehog,” Sonic nodded as well. It earned him a curious look, Elio’s movements pausing from where he was grabbing two apples.

“Like the hero, huh? The Blue Wind?”

“Sonic is the hero,” Silver huffed, arms crossing. “He’s a blue hedgehog and he’s very brave and he’s defeated tons of evil so far. Who else could he be?”

Elio laughed good-naturedly. “What, he just travelled here one day from centuries ago?”

“You got it,” Sonic nodded back sagely. Elio smiled in the way people did when presented with a cute child who’d created a whole fantasy world they were talking about as if they lived in it themself, which the speedster prayed Silver would not clock. But Elio also seemed to have enough self-preservation to not say his thoughts out loud, and Sonic gladly grabbed the bag with apples held out to him. “Thanks, mister.”

Though, as Sonic checked the price and pulled out the required amount of rings in turn, Elio shook his head. “It’s on the house-”

“Absolutely not,” Silver interrupted immediately, with an indignant bristling. “Nobody else gets them for free, so we shouldn’t either!”

Elio’s sigh gave Sonic the idea this wasn’t the first time he and Silver had been having this discussion. “He found me hundreds of apples one time, when I was running low on stock for a festival,” Sonic got informed fondly. “Whole barrels full, right out of the forest! But whenever I offer him a free apple as thanks, he declines.”

“It was no trouble. And that happened ages ago anyway. And the festival would have been ruined otherwise,” Silver hissed, looking so peeved Sonic deemed it wise to just put the amount of rings on the stall’s little counter with a wink of understanding sent to Elio. The man shook his head with an affectionate roll of his eyes, rings put away in the register.

“Alright then. Enjoy the best apples the future has to offer you, brave hero!”

Silver did narrow his eyes at that, but Sonic shot Elio a friendly smile before grabbing the psychic’s hand anew and tugging him back to their spot by the canal before he could get mad. “He’s always very unserious,” got sighed out, which only deepened as Sonic held out the stick with apple on it for Silver to grab. “I’ll pay you back.”

“I don’t want you to. You already saved my life, remember?”

Silver grumbled some things at that, mostly about how Sonic had saved his in turn, but a pointed look from Sonic did make his fingers curl around the stick. That meant they brushed right against Sonic’s, the touch cool and almost hesitant and also dissipating in a mere second as Silver pulled his hand back and bit into the apple. Sonic copied the movement with his own, carefully nibbling around the caramel as his tail gave a wag. Sweet from the sugar and savoury from the apple, forming a perfectly mild combination. “It’s delicious!”

“Heh. I’m glad you like it.” Pensively Silver chewed. “Alright, breakfast is covered. Are we gonna go to the GUN base now?”

“Shhh, not so loud,” Sonic chuckled at him. “We can make our way over there while we eat. Which road will bring us closest to a southern exit?”

“That'd be… the one there. It connects to a street that goes to a street that becomes a pipe,” Silver retorted, finger pointing over the canal. “It’ll be going right through the city too. So you can see more of it. You said you want to go sightseeing here and stuff, and we won’t be able to anymore after we get the Emeralds.”

Sonic whooped in victory at that and laughed only more at Silver’s eyeroll. If he dared to think crazily, he’d say it was a fond one. “Let’s go play tourists on our way to GUN!” the speedster grinned, Silver’s face twisting in pensive thoughts.

“You wanted to see how the past and this era differ, right?” Golden eyes surveyed the surroundings, every pillar and cobblestone scrutinised. As if Silver was trying to think of every single thing that could have changed in two centuries, Sonic figured with a smile.

Which promptly fell into nothingness at the words that followed.

“Maybe you’ll like the statue of you,” Silver said.

Sonic stared, because surely he had misheard. “Sorry… The what of me now?”

“Statue. Made in your honour or something. I’ve never actually looked at it all that close myself either. Hey, then I’ll learn something more about the city too!” Silver clarified… before turning around in one fell swoop. “It’s this way!” got yelled out a bit muffled through another bite of apple, and before Sonic could say anything, Silver had already darted off onto the road he had pointed out.

It left Sonic standing by the canal a mite awkwardly.

A statue…?

“…Oh dear,” the speedster allowed himself to hum. “Oh, yikes.”

But Silver had already disappeared around a corner, and with a bite of his own snack for strength and fortitude, Sonic cut to the chase. And, the speedster tried to encourage himself as he neared Silver anew, a few streets later, perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad.

He hoped, at least.

Chapter Text

“Oh, yikes. That’s worse than I thought,” Sonic was the first to pipe up. 

Silver blinked. Sonic frowned. The massive statue in front of them, a perfect likelihood of the latter except far taller, stood unmoving as always.

“That’s you,” Silver responded slowly. “To commemorate something important, but I’m not sure what. I never bothered reading the plaque.” 

“Great,” got hummed back. Sonic rubbed his chin, face twisting in… apprehension, Silver could have sworn. Unease? Blue brows furrowed and blue ears angled backwards ever so slightly, Sonic’s lips pulled down to show clenched-together teeth, Sonic’s grip on his stick with the caramelised apple seemed altogether tight, and as the seconds ticked away between them Silver frowned himself at how green eyes flicked all over the mass of stone…

“You don’t like it,” the psychic concluded slowly.

Sonic opened his mouth again, some humming noise of uncertainty coming out eventually. “Well, it’s… undeniably a grand statue?”

“It is.” After all, the thing was far taller than Sonic and Silver combined. With a flick of his ears Silver studied it more closely himself: a smile had been chiselled into the stone muzzle, stiff and flat compared to Sonic’s usually radiant beaming. The statue stood in a pose with a thumbs-up held out, other hand leaning onto his hips…

The pose, the expression, it all really was the perfect likelihood of Sonic. And yet, it couldn’t look more off to Silver if it tried.

“It looks like you. But it doesn’t at all,” Silver was the first to speak up, Sonic tentatively nodding back.

“Yeah… And I’d rather I did not have one to begin with.”

That gave Silver pause. With surprise he regarded the speedster, before looking back at the statue anew. “Oh. How come?”

“I’m just some guy! Just a hedgehog who travels the world in search of adventures and who likes to help people along the way,” Sonic retorted. “I don’t need some huge statue to thank me for my efforts. Seeing people be happy and thriving is more reward than I could ever ask for.”

“I think,” Silver concluded, “the city officials missed that memo.”

A dry snort was the response he got. “Seems that way.”

That left Silver standing awkwardly, Sonic not saying anything else either. Slowly the psychic turned around to study the park the statue stood in next: it was dedicated entirely to the memory of Sonic and his heroics, a sign just outside of it proclaimed. That was, if Silver remembered correctly, because he’d shot a single glance at it years ago and hadn’t been interested enough to read more than the first sentence. But whatever the park was made for, it did so with a great gorgeousness. Flower fields and pathways formed its bulk, while cutesy spots with playground equipment for children and benches sat sprawled between them, and on every corner stood a tree swaying in the breeze or a fountain spewing water…

And yet its clean stiffness couldn’t be more different from how Sonic was, with his hectic talking and moving and his chaotic activities and how much he brimmed with life, never with dullness.

Except Silver couldn’t help but frown at those thoughts at the same time. “But… it’s nice that they wanted to commemorate your deeds, right? You did a lot of good for the entire planet,” the psychic broke the silence that had been stretching between him and Sonic again. “Everyone here knows of you. If we go up to any random stranger and ask, they will know who Sonic the Hedgehog is. Isn’t that really impressive?”

No response came at those words, Sonic’s expression unreadable other than what Silver would describe as displeasure having set on his features… and also Silver himself frowned after a few seconds. “Although I guess that means you don’t actually need a statue, if everyone knows of you already,” the realisation struck him.

Sonic snorted.

With it, a little twinkle returned in green eyes, and Silver… frowned incredulously at the sense of relief that flooded into him at the sight. Why would seeing Sonic happier be relieving? That just made no sense, other than the fact seeing Sonic not happy was actually, somehow, quite tremendously upsetting, because Sonic never was unhappy. “Does that mean you’d heard of me before too, before you went to the past?” got grinned Silver’s way, the psychic shrugging back.

“Things here and there, yep. It’s pretty inescapable. But also… really not much. Again: I never cared to read that plaque.”

“Heh. You didn’t act like you’d heard of me when we met.”

“I was busy with, you know, making sure the world didn’t die. Twice,” Silver groused. And then by the point the world had not died the second time, he’d long seen that Sonic was reckless, and idiotic, and stupid and nosy and blabbery, good at getting in the way, bad at not making everything into a game or a joke… and brave. But all those aspects, minus the last one, probably did not get covered by plaques placed at memorials or any history books despite how irking they were.

…And they actually also did not fit the pensive, awkward, almost withdrawn way how Sonic had been studying his statue.

Or the things Sonic had been saying and doing throughout yesterday, and this morning as well.

Or how incomprehensibly off-putting it was to compare the statue and the park to who Sonic was as a person.

Quietly Silver took to looking the real-life Sonic all over instead. The speedster took a step forward, reading the engraved stone placed at the statue’s foot. The more green eyes shot about, the more Sonic’s brows furrowed deeper, an occasional huff or scoffing hum filling the air. Why did he not like it, Silver pondered. The speedster had called himself just a guy, despite what his extensive track record of world-saving heroics indicated. Was Sonic just… selfless like that, maybe? Or humble? Silver wouldn’t have clocked the speedster as being humble in the slightest. Or uncomfortable with this commemoration of his deeds, for that matter.

But it was the only way Silver could describe the shake of Sonic’s head and the look on his face as he turned around.

“Can I ask you something?” the speedster piped up anew, Silver jolting at the sudden noise. “How would you feel if they’d made a statue of you for your efforts?”

That at least was something Silver could make sense of far more easily. “A statue of me? They won’t. You’re just some guy who’s also a world-famous hero; I’m really just some guy,” the psychic retorted with a shrug. No, the things he was doing were important for sure, but he refused to let people grovel to him about it. And thus he pulled a face at Sonic’s statue and plaque and huffed as well. “I don’t think it’ll ever happen in the first place, but if anyone ever were to make a statue for me, I’d come right back from the afterlife and tell them off for wasting resources and stuff.”

Sonic…

Laughed.

Kindly, and his whole face softened again. “That’s also a good point.”

Silver’s ears perked up… but not because Sonic had given him a compliment. No, they had because Sonic looked far more like his usual self, with that playful look shining in his eyes, instead of so wary and withdrawn. “There’s better things in this world to spend resources on than me,” the psychic chatted further.  “And besides, I’m still here. Stories of heroes in a statue like this are great and all, but they’re not going to protect the world. Only I can do that.”

That earned him a look that lasted for just a bit too long, a flicker of that unreadability forming on Sonic’s face once more. “Of course you’re worth spending resources on. But I see what you mean. I’ve still got years of adventures left in me myself,” the speedster responded slowly all the same, Silver returning a firm nod.

“That’s good. The world must be kept safe. And you have to go home for that, on that matter.”

And with those words Silver turned around, gesturing for Sonic to follow as he located the path that would lead them out of the park and back to the road. Sonic seemed to be going right back to that wariness again… If Silver wanted Sonic to look like his usual self, getting him as far away from the statue as possible seemed like a good first step. This impromptu trip had put them a bit out of the way of the pipe he had in mind, but that was nothing some hustling and rushing couldn’t fix. They didn’t have any more time to dally and sightsee; they had to get to that GUN base as soon as possible.

Beside him, Sonic took to walking as well…

And smiled. “Thanks for showing me, Silver.”

That made Silver blink. “I thought you didn’t like the statue?” he retorted, staring at Sonic anew. The speedster had looked so upset about the whole thing!

But Sonic shook his head with what Silver could have sworn was warmth. “Not at all, no. But it’s nice to get your perspective on it.”

“…I don’t follow,” Silver concluded after a very long silence, which had done nothing to clear up Sonic’s line of thought to the psychic.

“I appreciate that you think I should have one, but I’m also glad that you think statues in themselves don’t have much of a point,” got clarified. “At least, that’s what you seemed to think to me, heh.”

Silver, who still did not follow, merely shrugged back. “You can ask the city officials to tear it down.”

“It’s okay. I don’t live here, so I don’t have to see it.”

“And I don’t care for it,” Silver hummed back. With a final bite he finished his own caramelised apple snack that had been sitting forgotten in his hand throughout this whole situation, Sonic’s still only half-eaten. With the speedster taking slow bites of his own they walked further; they were getting closer and closer to the giant underwater pipe that formed the main connection between the city and the mainland, and thus to the GUN base far farther away along the coastline. Beside Silver Sonic shot the statue lurking over the hedgerows that formed the park’s boundaries one final look over his shoulder, before shaking his head and turning his eyes back to the pavement.

Quietly Silver fell in line beside him, fiddling with the apple’s leftover stick. Sonic didn’t seem mad at all Silver had shown him something he didn’t like... Or at least Sonic seemed bubbly again, despite how wary and avoidant he’d been around that statue.

But the fact he hadn’t liked it to begin with was one Silver still couldn’t really wrap his head around. Was Sonic just humble like that, despite how much Silver would have sworn otherwise? That made no sense… maybe?

Sonic was right here still, pensively chewing but otherwise not occupied. “I thought you would have liked the statue,” the psychic thus spoke up.

Between two bites of apple Sonic raised an eyebrow. “How come?”

“You seem like the kind of guy who’d love that attention… or so I thought.”

“But?” Sonic inquired, something amused forming on his face as Silver frowned and pondered.

“But you didn’t. And I’m not sure why. But I think that’s…”

Silver’s words fell silent.

What did he think that was?

Commendable, Silver mused. Inspiring? Unexpected for sure. But definitely nicer than someone who’d immediately be a braggard about having a whole statue for themself. Though, simultaneously it was entirely unfitting compared to how he had imagined Sonic to be since the day they met. Because that had been loud and obnoxious, proud and obtuse…

But the real-life Sonic had been… nothing but kind. Grateful about the help Silver had been offering, willing to think along, patient, and with more good ideas in him than Silver would have deemed possible previously. And Sonic had also been playful and teasing, sure, but not to the point it drove Silver mad. It’d been funny at times, even…

He liked this Sonic much, much better than the Sonic he’d always envisioned in his head.

“It’s different than what I thought before,” Silver settled on at the inquiring look Sonic gave him, and what he had expected was the fond little smile and wink getting sent his way.

“Sometimes things you’d been taking for granted as unchangeable truth can catch you by surprise entirely with how different they are,” the speedster responded, and Silver couldn’t shake the feeling there was more that Sonic meant than just what Silver’s opinion on him had been.

But the other had already tore off the final bite of apple from his own stick and was chewing anew, and thus Silver kept his further thoughts in his head as they continued through the streets in comfortable silence.

☆☆☆☆☆

Silver knew his way around his city well: through dozens of back alleys, corridors, tiny streets and quaint little flowerbeds and ample bins to throw the remnants of their breakfast into, he and Sonic had made their way through most of the place far quicker than Sonic would have expected. “This pipe is the fastest way to the southern mainland for pedestrians,” the psychic spoke up as he and Sonic neared the tube in question, on a strip of pavement beside the road. “We’ll be split off from the car traffic, so it’ll at least be quieter…ish.”

With a snort Sonic looked around. They weren’t the only people making their way out of the city; pedestrians and robots galore walked past them as well, humans and anthros alike chattering with each other and generally forming the huge mass of people that could be found in cities often. “It’s busy here,” Sonic remarked, holding out a hand for Silver to grasp. That the psychic did not do, but he did step closer, their shoulders brushing together just barely.

“This pipe is a huge connective hub. A lot of skyscrapers and such are attached to this one with other pipes,” got yelled out over the noise of the chattering. It loudened as Sonic and Silver drew deeper into the pipe, the people’s talking echoing against the glass. “I should have just flown us over the water,” Silver sighed next, though Sonic shook his head.

“I love seeing the ocean like this.”

“Yeah, and the ocean’s surface is pretty crowded as well with cars and boats and hoverboards and what-have-you. It makes for bad flying. And besides, you’re not dying from sneezing like you were in that abandoned base, so…”

“So?” Sonic prodded as Silver trailed off. What did his hay fever and particle-disliking lungs have to do with anything?

“So I presume you don’t want me to carry you anyway,” that turned out to be.

Sonic halted for a moment, blinking in surprise. Yes, Silver had snatched him up and gotten them out of that base within seconds before Sonic had tragically perished from allergies. “Heh. It’s perfectly fine for you to carry me should it be needed,” he responded with an amused flick of his ears. His pride didn’t get hurt that easily, and certainly not by pragmatism.

“If you’re sure,” Silver shrugged back at that, and Sonic curiously regarded him. Perhaps Silver wasn’t sure because he himself clearly was not big on the touches and cuddles and getting carried around… if one ignored how adorably he had been snuggling with Sonic this morning. But Sonic couldn’t tell if Silver even remembered he had been doing that in his half-asleep state, and it was something Sonic would probably only bring up after they’d gotten the Emeralds back, lest Silver either get peeved or embarrassed. No, for now the memory would be Sonic’s alone to look back on fondly.

The two hedgehogs quietly walked side-by-side, with people pushing past them or ambling through the pipe at a leisurely pace. With his ears flattened to block out the noise Sonic marvelled at the sight of the ocean stretching out beyond the dozens of panes of glass they walked by…

Though, where yesterday it had been a lovely clear blue, now it was quite a bit more… murky.

“Huh. The ocean’s getting kinda stormy… isn’t it?” Silver spoke up, gesturing to the water that fully engulfed the pipe on the outside. Indeed, Sonic saw: the murkiness came from foam and sand stirring past. None of that had been happening yesterday, he was sure.

“There was some wind outside, so maybe it’s that? We’re not very deep yet.”

But Silver slowed, rubbing over the backs of his hands.

Sonic halted as well. A familiar prickle of unease made him shiver; it crawled over his quills, that spiked up before he could help it. With a sniffle he fought back a sneeze too, while Silver took one step forward, two, three…

“Do you hear that?”

“I hear all those people in here,” Sonic retorted, voice dropping. Why Silver had been so miffed about the crowdedness of the pipe became clearer by the second: endless chatter and laughter and conversations filled the air around them, bouncing against the glass in deafening echoes. The citizens pushed past the two hedgehogs with little regard; places to be and great hurries to be had, Sonic figured. But above their noises, Sonic could have sworn he picked out a whirr of sorts, that faded in and out at a frighteningly steady pace. And in the churning ocean, it was almost like Sonic could discern flits and flickers of…

Sunlight, reflecting on metal.

Sonic’s eyes widened.

Silver gasped.

“Robots!” the psychic yelled out.

His cry… only made the people closest to him and Sonic look over bemusedly, concerned glances sent to the two hedgehogs as Sonic dropped in a battle pose and cyan sprung to life around Silver. But that meant they fell silent, and that meant the noises became more easy to hear, and with that the people pushing through a bit farther away paused as well.

And conversations and chatter fell away into a ghostly silence in mere seconds… before one person screamed and pointed, to the topmost part of the half-pipe.

A spot of a crack, smaller than a pebble, had formed in one of the panes of glass there.

And expanded.

Rapidly.

“RUN!” Silver roared.

Panic overcame the mass in one fell swoop. Screaming began, and tramping and rushing; but in two different directions, away from the spiderweb of cracks that spread out over the pane of glass at a neck-breaking speed.

Horror struck Sonic like lightning.

“It’s going to-!” he gasped as he helplessly stretched out a hand, as if it could stop the water from breaking through and barrelling through this pipe in a destructive wave-!

Silver jumped forward, hands shooting up skywards with a yell.

And a shield of psychokinesis slammed into the segment before the water smashed through on the other side.

Sonic flinched. Cyan coated his friend, his hands extended upwards and palms flat as… he trembled, and groaned and wheezed, body staggering and shaking. “S-Sonic-!” Silver croaked out. Golden eyes opened widely, desperately animating towards the rest of the pipe. People were pushing and fighting to get out of it, but it only caused more of an obstruction. Some had already tripped or found themselves stuck against the glass in the stampede…!

And Silver was holding back the force of the entire ocean.

Sonic had blasted off before any time could pass.

Silver had said that each pipe segment could be closed off by a trap door, that’d fall shut when the segment of the pipe had emptied out. Amidst his rushing, Sonic’s sharp eyes determined where each was located; two large grey strips could be seen in two different directions. So he had to get the people beyond that…

And Sonic ran. He grabbed as many people as he could, tearing them away from the segment that Silver was holding together and pushing the people closest to one end deeper into the pipe, whereas those on the other side got swept towards its entrance. The people who had tripped or were about to get trampled he tugged up, rushing them over to safety as well… He needed mere seconds for his actions, though at every single one that ticked by, Silver’s face grew paler…!

But at last, after far too many of them, Sonic had pushed the final person beyond where the trap door would fall shut. Cries of surprise and shock followed as the people stumbled and fell over, but in the areas where they would be safe. “Everyone is gone!” Sonic cried out to Silver-

But no trap door came down.

Because Silver and he were both standing right here, Sonic realised with a flinch, and that meant it couldn’t be shut.

The psychic drew a groaning breath. “Go! Move!” got gasped out, Silver’s hands outstretched and fingers curled. They shook and trembled, water seeping past the psychic shield keeping the water out of the pipe. “The doors won’t- w-won’t come down if we’re… here…!”

“Not going without you!” Sonic retorted, mind whirling. If he snatched Silver and made a break for it, they could make it beyond the door that would block the pipe off before Silver’s shield dissipated and the whole pipe got flooded-

But something above Sonic’s head made him freeze.

A robot. Shaped like a narwhal, but with a huge spinning screw as a horn.

And before Sonic could cry out, it had rammed itself fully into an unbroken glass pane of the pipe, next to the one Silver had been keeping closed.  

Silver, trembling and shaking already, stood no chance to react. The glass burst into a million pieces, and with it came a tsunami of water, the other panes cracking and shattering too at the sheer force.

Sonic had already rushed towards Silver before the water could be sucked in by the difference in pressure when he-!

Froze.

Cold cyan enshrouded him in the microsecond before a force that knocked the breath out of him slammed against his torso, and then he flew backwards and crashed on the pipe’s walkway amidst the people.

And Silver got struck by the wave, body torn right away from where he was standing; the last thing Sonic saw before the trapdoor slammed shut.

Chapter Text

“SILVER!” Sonic roared out.

He’d landed somewhere amidst the people, screams of shock and horror going ignored as he shot to his feet again and rushed back to the trapdoor. A firm kick against it made nary a dent, however, and Sonic staggered back on the pavement. He tried a second time, and a third and a fourth…

But whatever it was made of refused to budge, and the hedgehog was left panting. Silver-!

Think. Focus.

With a grimace Sonic raced over to the glass that formed the pipe. He couldn’t break that to get into the ocean and see if he could reach Silver, with so many people around, but maybe he could at least see where Silver had been dragged off to…!

But only muck and sand floated through the water, reducing any visibility to zero.

“Silver,” the speedster whispered, mind already whirring another plan into existence. If he could get out of this pipe and run over the water, he could make his way back here and dive in to help his friend-

But as Sonic hurled around on his heels, a jolt of something went through him.

The gasps and cries of the citizens he’d dragged into here echoed through the pipe, but the people also shuffled back, almost subconsciously… And in the space they freed, Sonic could have sworn he saw…!

Cyan.

One spark. That turned to two… To four… To eight…!

And then dozens into hundreds into thousands as the air warped.

From them fell the soppiest, wettest bundle of grey fur, that crashed onto the ground with a sputtering heave for breath.

Sonic had thrown himself onto it before his mind could register the movement. “Silver,” he gasped, grasping the psychic’s scruff and turning him over on his belly. Hacking coughs ricocheted against the pipe’s glass walls, water gushing from Silver’s body and mouth as he rasped and panted. Sonic rubbed over his back as best he could, one arm hoisting Silver up a bit more to help angle his chest downwards. The other squirmed, body and breaths hitching; but as Sonic muttered the occasional quiet encouragement, slowly, ever so slowly, Silver calmed down until he was just… shaking, with water dripping from his coat into little puddles on the pavement.

But he was here. The cold seeping into Sonic’s legs from the water droplets and Silver’s scratchy inhales were the proof for that.

Sonic swallowed thickly. That had been way too close for comfort.

After a few more coughs, Silver’s breaths had evened out in full, or at least he wasn’t gasping like a fish stuck on land anymore. With a loud snuffle the psychic huddled against Sonic, trembles wracking his body. “Sonic,” got choked out, “a-are you… Are you okay…?!”

Sonic’s eyes widened.

“Am I okay?!” he repeated, bafflement crashing into him like a freight train. “I’m fine! But you’re not!”

If anything, that made… Silver bristle and tense in Sonic’s grasp. “I’m sorry,” Sonic added more gently, “but it is true.”

Silver sniffled most miffed. “I’m fine as well.”

With an incredulous frown Sonic ran his hand over the other’s body. Bony ribs poked through the sopping wet fur that clung to Silver’s skin. Silver was already quite wiry with his fur puffed up, but now… And his usually-tan muzzle was as pale as a ghost… And little cuts and scrapes marred his head, light red seeping at the edges… And that mane of his, usually so fluffy, hung in limp tufts around his neck and shoulders… And he sat shaking so pitifully, like a mad baby bird…

Silver had an interesting definition of being fine.

But as Sonic sat thinking over how to convince Silver that Sonic’s own definition of fine was quite the opposite of Silver’s current state, the people began crowding around them closer. Worried chatters and mutters filled the pipe, eyes staring and gestures made in the hedgehogs’ direction and Silver tensing immediately. “Mama, that’s Silver!” a little kid whispered, huddled behind a bigger anthro. That elicited more murmurs; some familiar, some confused, but all tremendously worried.

 “Maybe you should go to the hospital, boy,” one human man spoke up over the noise and the clamouring, while another anthro, a deer who stood fidgeting on the other side of the group, nodded as well.

“Yeah, Silver, you’re looking a bit-”

“I’m fine! I’m fine,” Silver interrupted, ears flattening to his skull. His shoulders hunched up too, a gleam of teeth in the beginnings of a snarl forming on his face-!

The deer awkwardly cleared her throat. “You don’t look like it, is what I’m saying. You look kinda… bad.”

“I don’t. Shut up.”

That caused only more mutters and whispers to form, thrumming through the tense air in the pipe. Silver bared his teeth further, a growl reverberating in his chest and murder flashing on his face…!

Carefully Sonic pushed himself to his feet.

With one, two steps he placed his body between Silver and the masses staring and talking, fur puffing up as to form a shield. “Silver will be okay. He’s very hardy,” he assured the people gathered around, shooting them all a disarming smile. “We’ll go outside and get him cleaned and dried, and if he’s not feeling alright after that, we’ll go to the hospital. How’s that sound?”

A concerned shrug rolled off the deer’s shoulder. “Well, if you’re sure…”

“Yes, Briar, we’re sure,” Silver huffed. With unsteady movements he scrambled up as well, sopping wet quills pushed back in one fell swoop. Underneath them golden eyes glared a hole into everyone crowding around; Sonic’s smile turned a mite more awkward as he scooped an arm around Silver’s shoulders and hoisted him up.

“Work with me here. This counts as a true emergency,” he muttered into a grey ear as that growl in Silver’s chest made the air tremble. But mercifully the other did not fuss as Sonic held him upright, and Sonic did his best to ooze confidence and calm collectedness as he and Silver pushed past the people gathered and made their escape further into the pipe. Some cries about taking care and expressing hope that Silver would feel better soon were getting called out behind them, Sonic raising up one hand in an acknowledging wave. “Just keep walking,” he added to Silver, a terse nod his response.

Little trembles rolled over the psychic’s body still, and Sonic frowned. Silver’s blue-tinted lips remained tightly pressed together, but water soaked right into Sonic’s pelt, alongside scratching sand and muck… “Silver, we gotta go to your hideout. We need to dry you and clean you and check you over,” Sonic spoke up once he was sure they were out of earshot from the people, the pipe completely empty otherwise. Everyone had to have ran away in a panic.

In Sonic’s grasp, Silver tensed immediately. “But the GUN base-!”

“Can wait. You, however, are going to catch a terrible cold, and then I’ll be staying around at your place even longer to nurse you back to health, and in that time we won’t get any Emeralds at all.”

Golden eyes stared at Sonic as if Silver couldn’t believe what he was saying, but then in a rather mad, incredulous, and unwilling kind of way. “But…!” Silver protested again, ears pressing against his head. “I don’t want you to have to do that!”

“Then let me look after you now, alright? That GUN base won’t walk away, but you being healthy sure will if you go trudge all the way across the continent now to go get the Emeralds from them.”

A silence followed. Sonic’s walking slowed down as Silver’s did too, the psychic’s face twisting with so many emotions even Sonic found it hard to tell them all apart. Anger, but underneath there a sort of concern as well, and also just… confusion.

Which remained as the anger slowly, ever so slowly, flowed into an unwilling acceptance.

“Fine,” eventually got mumbled out. “If… If you really want to. Third exit to the right here will bring us to another pipe that goes to another that’ll exit close to my hideout.”

“Of course I really want to,” Sonic smiled back, and Silver’s eyes looked everywhere but at the speedster.

But with the psychic’s blessing Sonic set off once more, Silver leaning heavily on his side and humming directions. Still, it took some puzzling to figure out where to go: the people of the city had managed to altogether build a huge maze underneath the ocean with these pipes, the speedster groused to himself. But luckily Silver, amidst his bleary staring and half-hearted shakes of his water-soaked pelt, could still give pointers on which connections were the right ones to enter, and finally they made their way into a half-pipe that begun angling upwards soon after. “Are your powers okay? Can you fly?” Sonic inquired as the pipe and the water around it grew lighter, until they could exit onto a road above-water.

Silver, who’d been stubbornly trudging on with a hardened frown on his face, jolted as Sonic broke the silence between them. “Oh! Uh… Yeah, sure. They’ve been more tired before,” the psychic retorted quickly, balling a fist. With some flickers and hesitation, cyan flowed to life around Silver and lifted him off the ground... “See? Fine as always,” got added, though Sonic did not miss how gloved fingers shot up to clutch Silver’s skull.

“I can carry you,” the speedster offered, though Silver merely shook his head back at that. A vague gesture towards the forest coating the hills of the mainland followed, and Sonic made sure to run right beside Silver with their arms brushing together as the two of them blasted off towards the trees and the mountains rising up beyond.

He was certain Silver did lean against his shoulder, just a bit.

But any verbal inquiries or attempts to get Sonic to help stayed out, and before long, the duo had made their way back to Silver’s hideout. As they scooted through the entry Silver froze underneath the brambles, and thus Sonic did too. But a few seconds of tense silence ended with a shrug and the grey hedgehog pushing himself past the branches. “Everything’s okay here?” the speedster inquired, just in case.

“Yeah. Nothing out of the ordinary. The wind isn’t around, though, but that’s normal for him. He goes on adventures a lot.”

With some scrambles Silver limped into the hideout in full, Sonic following after. Indeed, the lack of a gentle gale was easy to detect; but mercifully that also meant the cluster of daisies kept their pollen close to themselves, and Sonic could draw a breath freely as he stuck close to Silver. “Make yourself comfortable wherever. You can take the hammock if you want,” the psychic mumbled, rubbing at his eyes.

Sonic, who looked around and concluded Silver didn’t seem to possess anything akin to chairs, smiled lightly at that. “How about you take it, pal. And do you have a first aid kit anywhere? And towels?”

“…I don’t have- Oh! I do have an first aid kit,” Silver nodded, whirling around on his heels to dive at one of his sturdy-looking bags that sat in a corner of his hideout. Sonic stifled a wince at how haphazardly he was moving; Silver had to take it easy, after exerting himself so much. But before Sonic could open his mouth and urge Silver to do just that, the psychic had already limped back with a little box clutched against his chest. “Sit down,” followed, Sonic herded towards one of the tree trunks. Most bemused Sonic let his friend, weak sparks of cyan tapping away at his legs and shoulders until he’d flopped onto the ground…

And Silver sunk down right beside him. The first aid kit got dropped on his lap, and a soaked gloved hand got pressed against Sonic’s chest and pushed him lightly against the tree. “Alright,” Silver hummed as he grappled with the lid of the kit, “where are you hurt?”

“Where am I-” Sonic began to repeat… before the realisation of what Silver was presuming struck. “Silver, I’m not the one who is hurt. I’m asking for you!”

“But you smacked right onto the ground. You sure you’re not bruised?”

“Positive. You, however, got battered by the full force of the ocean and also had an entire pane of glass strike you in the head.” Gently Sonic curled his own hand around Silver’s, giving the trembling fingers a squeeze before tugging them onto Silver’s lap. From there he grabbed the first aid kit in turn before Silver could protest, tugging the lid up. “You got some scrapes and cuts. Right there, on your face.”

Golden eyes narrowed as Sonic shot the kit’s – honestly rather meagre – contents a look. “Those will heal by themselves. Don’t need to waste my nanocream on them.”

“I’m gonna spent the rest of my time here worried they’ll get infected and that you are going to die,” Sonic winked; jokingly, but with a hint of seriousness in his voice that he hoped Silver would pick up on all the same.

“You were calling me dramatic for thinking that yesterday,” the sighed judgement came. But Silver did point to a small tube with a cross on it, that Sonic studied curiously. It’d repair small cuts and injuries, it said… Tails would have a field day with that for sure. But as it stood, Silver wordlessly took it from Sonic’s hands the moment he grabbed it, and smeared the tiniest amount on his fingers. “Where’s the cuts at?”

“You know,” Sonic brought up, “I can put it on for you.”

“I can do it myself,” got grumbled back immediately.  

Silver seemed far more suicidally independent than Sonic dramatic, the speedster mused. But he knew better than say so, and thus he leaned closer. “Right here… And one there, too… And over there…” he pointed each cut out, most carefully gesturing in front of Silver’s face until all of them had been dotted with the cream.

…And under Sonic’s widening eyes, the cuts began to close-!

Silver huffed out something that could be taken for a noise of amusement as Sonic gasped in awe. “Heh. Nanotechnology is nice,” the psychic noted, shoulders sinking down ever so slightly. “It won’t do much for really big injuries, but the nanites repair smaller ones no problem. And they’re set to dissolve into harmless stuff after just a few minutes, too.”

Considering this was a world that seemed to be post-Eggman but clearly still had tons of scars from the madman around, and considering Silver had a nemesis of his own, Sonic could see some benefits to that. “Useful,” he nodded back. “You got that info from the library?”

“No. It says so on the box, and they make you read it every time you buy a new tube.”

Sonic couldn’t help it; he snorted. “Public safety,” he settled on. It earned him a shrug, Silver jamming the cap back on the tube again and grabbing the first aid kit from Sonic’s lap before stumbling upright. Warily Sonic studied the psychic as he put the thing away and hoisted the bag back into its spot underneath all the others, psychic powers clawing and frizzing wildly at the material…

It didn’t seem to be very convenient. And sure, on days where Silver’s powers were at their best, Sonic could imagine the other made everything float and dance with grace, but now…

“Do you have any towels?” the speedster repeated his earlier inquiry, now that Silver was scrambling with the bags anyway. He had to repeat it two more times before the other’s head turned around, and the bag had already been put in its slot… and Silver blinked and stared blearily at Sonic before jolting.

“Oh- Nope. Well, I’ve got this hand towel, but…”

With a groan the psychic grabbed another bag and tore it from underneath the stack with a second huge fight and more kicking and pulling, Sonic wincing at how hectic it all looked. “That’s not a big towel,” the speedster hummed awkwardly as the smallest piece of fabric got pulled out. “You got nothing else?”

“I just dry in the sun. My dishes too. Not that I have many.”

How did that work when it was raining, the question arose in Sonic, but he shook it away. It wasn’t right now, mercifully. “Yeah, but right now you’re a bit… sandy. And mucky. We gotta wash you off.”

With a slow turn of his head Sonic took in more of the hideout, shifting on the hard ground between the tree’s roots. Though it looked cosy and green and like a spot Silver had been putting a lot of love into, Sonic did have to concede it also seemed… like it lacked certain amenities. Sure, Sonic slept in the wilderness a lot himself and there weren’t any chairs to be found there either, but as he pondered, he could detect the campfire and hammock he’d seen yesterday morning as well, and of course Silver’s bags with supplies… and nothing else.  “You got a means of taking a shower here?” the speedster prodded, Silver jolting anew from where he'd been staring at the bags like he wasn’t seeing them at all.

“Huh-?”

“A shower. You’re absolutely soaked.”

“…But a shower will just make me more soaked. That’s also water,” got responded half-dry, and half-uncertain. It made Sonic smile, patting the ground beside him.

“I mean that the water of the ocean is cold and dirty, whereas showers are warm and will clean that dirt away.”

“Oh, like so.” With uncertain steps Silver came shambling over, crashing onto the ground anew with a deep sigh. “I can throw some water from one of my bottles over my head.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” And promptly grey arms crossed. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’re being all fretting.”

Sonic did his best to put the most confident of grins on his face. “And you’re looking like you got put through the wringer a lot. That warrants some worry, wouldn’t you say?”

Silver’s gaze dropped down to his body and mane as if he hadn’t even noticed his fur clinging to his skin.

“Oh. Well… I’m sure it’s not that bad,” followed after a few seconds of long silence. “Just like I got put a little bit through the wringer. Let’s not exaggerate.”

“Hmhm.”

“…But I guess that isn’t so weird to begin with, considering what happened.”

“Hmmmmhm,” Sonic agreed, leaning back on his hands with his grin only growing and becoming more genuine in the meantime too. Silver sat staring at himself, and Sonic was sure he could hear the cogs spin and churn in the other’s head as be blinked, once, twice…

Before he snorted.

“No, you’re right,” followed. Quietly, and definitely a bit unwillingly, but with a sprinkle of fondness in there that made Sonic’s ears perk right up. And that fondness increased as Silver looked up, head giving a small shake as his eyes met Sonic’s. “I guess it is a little bit that bad, huh?”

That made Sonic snort as well, a full laugh slipping past his lips next at it all. Silver sitting altogether soaked and dirty and mucky and sandy yet focusing only on whether Sonic was okay, and Sonic fretting about the psychic in turn, and Silver apparently not even having grasped the gravity of the situation until just now… “I’m glad you’re safe,” the speedster smiled back warmly. Everything, him and Silver just sitting like this and acting like this, made a sense of relief tingle through Sonic’s chest and legs and arms and hands, and a second far louder laugh followed-  

As one slipped from Silver’s lips as well.

Lightly. And not all that long. More a titter than a full belly laugh, truly.

But a laugh.

Sonic froze.

“What a mess,” Silver chuckled, and the note of amusement that his voice contained was utterly unmistakeable. “I wouldn’t have thought this would happen when I told you about how the pipes work, that’s for sure!”

Sonic had many things he wanted to say to that.

Sonic also found himself entirely at a loss for words as Silver lifted into the sky and gave his grey-furred pelt the firmest shake until now. Water droplets spattered about, some striking Sonic, and yet it did nothing to knock the speedster out of his stupor.

He’d never heard Silver laugh before.

Never, ever. Not a single moment during their two adventures in the past. Not a single moment during this adventure in the future. And yet here Silver was, something mischievous coating his features as he dropped to the ground anew. A twinkle in his gaze, with the corners of his lips curled up underneath and his nose giving a twitch Sonic could only describe as playful.

It all made him shine.

“I’m glad you’re okay. I’m glad everyone is okay-” the psychic added…

And then, that twinkle and that tiny smile and those twitches snapped out of existence in the time Sonic needed to blink. The usual deathly serious look that always occupied Silver’s face formed anew right after, Sonic regarded with that usual intensity once more. “You are okay, right?” got inquired, genuine worry resounding in Silver’s voice. “You sure you’re not fretting because you got hurt? You’re acting all off.”

“I’m… not hurt, because of you,” Sonic hummed back, once he’d wrangled his tongue and mouth into cooperating again. But what to say to Silver’s statements? He couldn’t just go in like that and drop a bombshell that Silver looked and sounded altogether radiant when laughing, because it was so not the time right now. Yeah, Sonic immediately decreed, he could go with that explanation. “But, you know… you could have drowned,” he thus added instead, his chest tightening at the memories of being unable to reach Silver to help him. It had been way too close for comfort. “I’m sure most people would be startled in such a situation. Let alone when it concerns someone they know well.”

Sonic got regarded with wide golden eyes, for a second or two… before they averted, Silver hunching in on himself. “But… I’m really hardy.”

“I know that. I’m not saying that you aren’t. But, you know…”

With his words trailing off into a silence Sonic shrugged helplessly. If Silver put the responsibility of being everyone’s saviour on his own shoulders exclusively, convincing him that his almost-demise was upsetting would be hard indeed. Sonic could only hope his silence conveyed those concerns instead.

Quiet stretched out between the two hedgehogs, Sonic studying Silver and Silver studying his knees… until eventually his head angled back, and grey ears gave an almost hesitant twitch. “We can go to Mountain River Zone so I can get cleaned up?” got suggested hesitantly. “It’s not the same as a shower, but… if it’ll make you less worried?”

That wasn’t really how it worked, Sonic knew to not say either, and thus he nodded. Silver would have to wash all the salt out of his pelt anyway. “Sure thing,” the speedster thus responded. “And maybe we should wait with the GUN mission for a little bit too, alright?”

…Silver’s indignant bristling got made pretty cute with how soggy he looked still.

“Hey!” the psychic hissed. “You said we’d do it today!”

“And we will! But it’s early noon. Don’t your powers need a moment to recover?”

Am unwilling humming noise was the response Sonic got to that inquiry. Silver pulled a face as if he really wanted to grumble and grouse about this, but for some reason couldn’t manage to pull it off. “Okay, okay,” the psychic relented with a sigh. “We’ll go to the river so I can get clean, and in that time my powers can recover. And when that’s done and you’re not worried anymore we go to the GUN base. Right?”

“Right,” Sonic winked back as he pushed himself to his feet and extended a hand.

Which… Silver regarded curiously, before peeking back to Sonic. “Is this a down low or are you trying to help me up?”

That sense of relief intensified a thousandfold, and Sonic could only laugh anew.

“Hey!!” Silver promptly bristled anew, huffily headbutting Sonic’s fingers. “I’m just asking!”

“Helping you up,” Sonic chuckled back, giving Silver’s hand a squeeze as the psychic curled it into Sonic’s palm. And as Sonic tugged Silver upright also, he could have sworn that glimmer of playfulness shone in the other’s features once again.

It made the echo of his one little laugh blast back into Sonic’s mind with the force of a rocket.

“Thanks,” Silver hummed before pulling his hand away, mercifully standing more steadily than how he’d been staggering through his hideout previously. With a groan the psychic stretched himself out, Sonic given ample time to study him and think and ponder.

Silver had just looked so radiant. How radiant could he look when laughing unrestrainedly, when beaming in full? What would be needed to let him feel like he could laugh like that?

Sonic had to say something, anything.

“Hey, Silver?” the speedster piped up once Silver had unstretched himself again. “Has… anyone ever told you you’ve got a nice laugh?”

Golden eyes shot him an inquiring look. “I don’t think so. How come?”

“Because you do!” Sonic insisted. “You know, I’ve never heard you laugh before… but it sounded really neat! Such happiness looks good on you.”

He could have sworn another smile formed on Silver’s face at those words, positively miniscule yet undeniably there, and the psychic looked all the more radiant for it.

“Flatterer,” got huffed at him… but where usually Silver’s huffs contained an amount of disdain lethal to most creatures, Sonic knew for sure this huff was playful. As it stood Silver gestured to the exit of his hideout with an expression that looked just like his usual deathly seriousness, but the edges of his lips remained curled up still. “Let’s go. We don’t have time to waste!”

“Let’s,” Sonic agreed, falling into line behind the other and the duo ducking underneath the brambles before running and floating over into Mountain River Zone.

Their trek got spent in silence. But every once in a while Silver’s fingers brushed past his mouth, and Sonic’s eyes kept flicking back to them at that motion, and the quiet between them buzzed with something Sonic just couldn’t exactly place.

But it was something nice.

He’d give Silver compliments more often, the speedster resolved, and maybe that would provide him with an answer as to what it was.

Chapter Text

A nice laugh.

Pensively Silver flew beside Sonic, the duo making their way through the forest that lead to River Mountain Zone. Not at Sonic’s usual neckbreaking speed; instead they were moving noticeably slower. Which was odd, because hadn’t Sonic urged Silver to go get clean so Sonic wouldn’t be worried? But still, Silver was grateful: his powers grumbled and complained about being tired, and Silver ignored them all the harder for it. They would be fine after he rested for a bit at River Mountain Zone, with Sonic.

Who, apparently, thought he had a nice laugh.

Silver hadn’t laughed a single time in the past. Heck, he hadn’t smiled a single time in the past. How could he have smiled, with the sake of both that world and his own on the line?

How could he have now, considering the disaster that had happened?

The more Silver mulled it over, the less sense it made. Perhaps it had just been relief from the fact nothing bad had happened and everyone was okay… but everyone had been far too close to not being okay. People could have been hurt, or could have died. Sonic could have been hurt or died. The speedster had been scrambling all over to pull everyone out of harm’s way, while Silver had just stood uselessly trying to keep things from getting worse instead of helping. And even with Sonic’s speed, it’d been a miracle all those citizens had gotten out in time.

And then Sonic for some reason had lastly ran towards Silver and not away.

…Silver drew a utter blank on why he had, exactly.

“Hey… Sonic?” the psychic spoke up, green eyes peeking at him over Sonic’s shoulder. “Why’d you not leave? In the pipe? You would have been swept away also.”

Sonic’s far-slower-than-usual speed slowed down even more. “I was going to grab you and make a break for the next segment before that door would have fallen shut,” he explained… though it immediately put a frown on Silver’s face. So Sonic had been loitering because of him…

“You should have left when I told you to. What if I hadn’t managed to bring you to safety in time?! You could have died!” the psychic huffed, fur bristling.

But Sonic raised an eyebrow in turn, head shaking. “And leave you behind there?”

“Yeah! I told you the doors wouldn’t come down if there were still people inside.”

“But you were inside too.”

Oh, Silver blinked. Yes, he had been. By the pipe’s standards, he was included in the concept of ‘people inside the pipe’ as well. Which hadn’t crossed his mind that much, actually. Possibly even not at all.  “Yeah…?”

Sonic smiled that incorrigibly annoying smile of his. “So what then, huh?”

“…I would have found something,” Silver, who immediately decided he would rather die than admit to Sonic he hadn’t thought that far ahead, huffed back. It earned him an amused snort and a goofy wriggle of Sonic’s eyebrows, though Sonic had sped away again before Silver could hurl a tree at him. Or concede that Sonic’s annoying smile was, in a way, actually very nice to see. Like everything was okay now and they were all safe and Silver didn’t have to keep thinking over the fact everything could have gone so wrong. Whichever came first.

“There’s the river!” the speedster cried out, the trees thinning until Silver rushed after him through flowers and grasses up to the sprawling expanse of water in question. It ran steady as always, little bits of foam and tiny waves rolling over its surface and licking at the big rocks that lined the river’s shore. “Gorgeous,” Sonic breathed, head turning to and fro slowly. Though, he gave it a shake soon after, a wink sent towards Silver. “How’s this for a plan. You get washed, and I’ll gather some fruits and stuff in the meantime. I’m a bit hungry after all that excitement.”

Grey-furred ears gave a worried flick. “if you’re hungry, you should find something to eat for sure,” Silver responded. It wouldn’t do to have Sonic collapse on the way to the GUN base! “You can eat parts of the cattails, and there’s blueberries around too, and plantain plants… There might even be some raspberries already. Do you know how to find them?”

“Absolutely,” Sonic retorted chipper as always before blasting off. Silver huffed at the wind striking him, though it made a good reminder that he still was a bit damp from the ocean water. Thus the psychic floated himself into the opposite direction until he hung right in the river’s middle, and dropped into the churning foam with little fanfare.

Immediately Silver’s breath caught in his chest at the cold.

With a heave the psychic resurfaced; the water from the mountains was far colder than the ocean had been. But at least this current was predictable and just tugged him in one direction and not everywhere all at once, and with a swift kick of his feet he kept his head above the surface, instead of helplessly spitting out air bubbles and floundering with only water and sand around…

With a shiver Silver paddled his arms and legs. He’d best just stop thinking about what had happened, and think about anything else. Perhaps something like Sonic, who now made a blur of blue in the distance, rummaging through bushes and stuff. Yes, Sonic would be nice to think about. And thus Silver scrunched up his face and flicked his ears and pondered over what to ponder.

Which was ample, the longer Silver thought. Warily he studied what little he could see of the speedster, who he was sure was whistling a tune that got carried over on the wind. And that made a frown set on Silver’s face. He’d always been so convinced Sonic only cared about enjoying himself, never about taking matters seriously. Even when fighting at the industry terrain, he’d made it into a competition. And every other moment seemed to be spent on being silly and having that fun that Silver loathed so much to think about when it came to adventures.

But in the pipe, no quips or jokes had followed. Instead the speedster had handled in seconds. Agonising seconds that had been tearing away at Silver’s entire self, his powers waning and fighting and clawing and struggling… but seconds wherein everyone’s lives had been saved, because of Sonic.

Seconds wherein Sonic had handled and acted like a solemn, focused, true hero.

Quietly Silver sighed, mind whirring. Sonic himself had said he knew when to get serious; had he been right about that? Though that mere thought had seemed ridiculously laugh-worthy yesterday and earlier, now Silver couldn’t help but consider it.

But as Sonic came darting back, Silver got shown two handfuls of blueberries and even a few small raspberries before he could ask about it. “I got a whole haul! They’re delicious,” Sonic remarked, bouncing back to the river. “How’s the water?”

Silver’s body shivered all dramatically, and Silver flicked a water droplet in his face to scold himself for that. “A bit chilly,” he shrugged back. Nothing he couldn’t handle, though.

Sonic, who’d begun clambering down on the rocks towards a big flat one right at the water’s edge, raised an eyebrow. “Too cold?”

“Not at all.”

Experimentally the speedster dipped a hand with fruit in the river… before yelping and yanking it right back. “Jeez-! Silver, get out of there before you get hypothermia, dude.”

“I don’t get hypothermia,” Silver retorted with a huff, though two more seconds of staying in the river made him determine this wasn’t so pleasant all the same. And thinking about Sonic to distract himself was hard when Sonic was right here to talk to. Thus, Silver lifted himself out of the water and gave his pelt a firm shake, rolling his eyes at how shivery and chilled he felt. At least Sonic had picked a rock that sat right in the sun’s beams, Silver sinking down on the warmed stone and stretching himself out to soak up as much of that heat as he could. “I’m clean.”

Amidst careful rubs over the fruit from where Sonic held them in the river, the speedster raised his eyebrow only more. “You sure?”

“Yeah. It’s running water, it’s just like taking a shower.”

“Heh. If you say so.”

Vehemently Silver nodded. “I’ll dry up in the sun, let my powers recharge in the meantime, and then we will go to the GUN headquarters."

“And eat something,” Sonic urged, the wet fruits held out to Silver. “Take as many as you want. I already had plenty and I can get more easily.”

Though Silver was primed and ready to say that Sonic definitely had to eat something first… he instead found himself awkwardly nodding as those bases promptly got covered. “Thanks,” he responded, palms stretching out for Sonic to put some of his foraged goods into. Which the speedster did, except he dropped everything he’d been holding into Silver’s hands, and pulled away again before Silver could give some back… Oh well, if Sonic was sure if it was okay. And Silver’s powers did perk right up at the first bite, and thus the psychic dutifully munched away on the delectable sweetness. “Huh. They are delicious,” he hummed amidst a mouthful, rather muffled.

Sonic’s chuckle was so odd in how warm it made Silver feel. Like he hadn’t at all been swimming in the world’s most chilly river just now.

And green eyes looked him all over too, with so much focus…

Silver swallowed his fruit. “Something the matter?”

“Not at all. Except that you look a mite soaked,” Sonic remarked, and Silver shot him a dry look back.  

“I told you this would happen.”

“You did. But it made me wonder… We healed your face, but I’m not sure if you’re hurt anywhere else. So I was trying to see if you were.”

“I don’t think so.” An awkward twist and craning of Silver’s neck so he could study his back revealed nothing, at least. “I’m not in pain, so surely I’m not hurt either,” the psychic added, forcing encouragement into his voice. He had been when the force of the blast of water had scraped him right past the pipe and then the ocean floor, but that was done and over now. He’d be fine.

And yet, Sonic’s eyes remained on him still, the speedster leaning closer. “I can check to be sure. We, you know… gotta be in tiptop shape to go infiltrate that GUN base!”

Had Silver wanted to protest that Sonic’s concerns were really not necessary, instead he jolted at that notion. Because Sonic raised a good point: what if they failed to get their Emeralds because Silver wasn’t performing as best he could? And also, Sonic just looked worried. A lithe smile rested on his muzzle, but it didn’t reach his eyes, Silver could have sworn. Instead those creased with… a deep sense of concern, it almost seemed like. Was he truly that frightened Silver had been injured?

Pensively Silver shoved the other half of the berries into his mouth, chewing extensively to give himself time to think. So getting washed had not worked in diminishing that fright. But seeing Sonic not happy was so…

So…!

So something Silver wanted to never see. Something he wanted to avoid at all costs. Seeing Sonic unhappy felt so wrong. Like it went against all the fundamental laws of the universe; like it was something that should never, ever happen.

…And what did he have to lose?

Quietly Silver wiped his gloves on his knees, before scooting around. “You can look if you want,” he offered over his shoulder, lowering his head slowly so his quills wouldn’t be hanging over his back so much. An awkward way to sit, but a peering over his shoulder unveiled…

Sonic’s smile reached his eyes again.

“Sure thing! Thank you,” the response came, and Silver could only ponder at how genuinely grateful it sounded.

Some scrabbling followed, Sonic bundling together some moss and grass from the riverbank. He soaked it in the water for a bit, before tender fingers pressed against Silver’s back. It got followed by the cold sensation of the makeshift sponge dripping its liquid all into Silver’s hairs, Silver drawing a little breath at the second bout of awful chilliness. At least the sun was warm. And Sonic’s hand was too, actually: nimble fingers parted Silver’s quills, stroking lightly over the skin underneath, before getting up and moving to the next part of Silver’s fur. It made shivers spill down Silver’s spine, and not from the frosty water. “I was wondering,” Sonic meanwhile hummed behind him, his fingers brushing past Silver’s ribs. “In your hideout… What do you eat? Do you collect things as well?”

“Yeah. And I buy stuff that I can grill and cook over the campfire,” Silver responded, before snorting. “Though, apparently everyone I know loves baking and cooking, and they’re all really bad at measuring out how much they’re making. Almost every week or so someone gives me some kind of food that they can’t finish.”

“Oh?”

“Tasty things too! Soups, and cakes and muffins and cookies… Whole dishes that I can just reheat in a pan, sometimes even.”

Sonic… remained quiet for a second. “That’s really nice of them!” followed after that, though, in a very cheerful tone of voice that had Silver nodding eagerly.

“It is! They’ve all got fruits and vegetables in them and stuff… It’s a great cost-cutter. I’ve got slices of carrot cake at home I got from a girl at my job, actually. We can eat those after we got the Emeralds, so you can go home with a full stomach.”

“Tails will be grateful for that, heh. He usually cooks when I’m over and then complains I’m eating him out of house and home.”

Silver conjured up a mental image of that and promptly had to stifle an amused little noise. Though, that brought his thoughts to Tails, and everyone else that Sonic knew, and thus to the past in full. They were so close to bringing Sonic back where he belonged…! “Is it weird, to almost go home again? You haven’t been here very long,” the psychic mulled.

With a twitch of his ear the psychic craned his neck to peek around, scrutinising Sonic all over. It wasn’t a frown on Sonic’s face, he determined; but it also wasn’t that loose and cheeky expression that characterised the speedster so often otherwise. Something inbetween, perhaps? Sonic’s eyes remained trained on Silver’s back, and yet they did not shine with their usual light again…

Silver’s brows furrowed and mind whirred and through extensive, elaborate, brain-wracking thinking he concluded that it was something bittersweet.

“Are you sad?” the psychic inquired once he’d figured that out.

Sonic, who’d silently been working away on Silver’s back throughout the multiple seconds the latter had been thinking, tipped his head to the side. “No, I’m not. I’m just thinking about my friends, and my own era.”

“But you said you don’t get homesick.”

“I don’t, but I can wonder if they’re okay without missing them. I hope Eggman isn’t getting under anyone’s skin. Or even worse, injuring them. I’d feel awful.”

A deep growl reverberated in Silver’s chest before he could help it.

“I don’t get it,” he snarled, a flush of heat crashing into him as his blood spiked into boiling.

The sponge halted its gentle rubbing. “Don’t get what?”

“Why people such as Eggman are like that. Why they want to hurt others, and it makes them feel good. That’s horrid!”

“Ah, like so.” With a hum Sonic wrung out the sponge, before dipping it in the river anew. It gave Silver ample time to study him, and how pensively he moved. “It is horrid, absolutely. It’s awful that people delight in causing others pain,” followed, Silver turned around with a gentle hand pressed against his shoulder. Sonic’s sponge ran over his side next, rubbing with little motions. “But that’s why there’s people like you and me, who feel good when they see others be happy,” the speedster continued… and his face softened. “There will always be Eggmans, but there’ll also always be people who stand up to them. A bit like the balance of the Emeralds, with their positive and negative energies. In the end, kindness will always triumph over evil, because kind people care too much to let it be the other way around. That’s what I believe.”

All the while, that hand remained laying on Silver’s shoulder, warm and steady.

“…If you say so,” Silver sighed back eventually. That didn’t sound like a very solid, unshakeable rule that was always true and could always be counted on. And yet… Sonic talked about it so convincingly that maybe, just maybe, Silver wanted to believe it just as strongly as he did. Still, the psychic shook his head and puffed himself up more miffed. “I believe nobody should ever get to be cruel to someone else. I’ll fight anyone who enjoys bringing others misery.”

A smile formed on Sonic’s muzzle.

“You’re a sweet guy, Silver,” the speedster winked, and Silver could have sworn it was with full, utter genuineness.

Which was nice, but… also not really something Silver knew what to make out of. Sure, people said so more often, usually when Silver had been helping them out with his powers…

But when Sonic said it, it felt different.

“…Thanks?” the psychic settled on, before squaring up his shoulders. “But so are you!”

“Heh. I guess I want to say… that I like how much you care about things.”

“Everyone always says I care too much,” Silver responded with ease. Most of them said so kindly, or at least he thought. The people from the library sometimes asked if he wasn’t taking on too much work, and every once in a while Elio made a comment about whether he was sleeping enough, or Briar and her friends urged him to just come hang out for an afternoon without spending it only on helping others, or James and Eliza from the post office asked if all those boxes he took along with his powers every time didn’t tire him out. But he was doing just enough, Silver always responded. In fact, there was often even more he could be doing. The whole world was full of people who needed help, and Silver wouldn’t stop before he had helped them all with everything forever.

But beside him, Sonic shook his head. “I’d say there’s no such thing as caring too much… unless it burns you out, of course. Can’t pour from an empty pitcher and all that. But I think it’s wonderful that you care, but even more that you take action. I just wanted to tell you I appreciate that.”

Silver didn’t really get it. But Sonic looked at him with that kindness… that fondness. That look of affection, that Silver couldn’t discern a single bit of dishonesty in. He’d looked that fond as well when he’d tucked Silver under a blanket…

“Well, someone has to do it, and that someone is me,” the psychic settled on with a shrug, before spiking himself up a bit. “Are you finding any injuries?”

“Not at all. You got lucky.”

“Good.” Making himself small Silver ducked away from that wet sponge rubbing over him, shaking himself out to dislodge the cold droplets. If Sonic didn’t find any injuries on his one side, his other side was fine as well, definitely. “You’re sure you-”

“Absolutely,” Sonic interrupted cheekily before Silver could ask if the speedster was a hundred percent certain about not being injured himself. It got followed by a laugh, the sponge wrung out before getting gently dismantled and cast into the river. Silver for his part did his best to harrumph, which didn’t sound so sincere even to his own ears, as he pushed himself upright in full.

“Great. That means we can go to the GUN base now. My powers are fine too.”

“Yeah… That. Or, and I know I’m being bold here, we take a few more minutes to enjoy the sun and the river.”

Silver jolted. Sonic smiled that smile of his. And the latter also made zero attempts to get up like Silver had. “…You’re incorrigible,” the psychic settled on with a groan. “I thought you wanted to go home!”

“That I do. But right now, most of all, I want you to be okay.”

Silver’s ears drooped against his head as he sighed. “You sound just like everyone else.”

Green eyes regarded him curiously. “What do they say?”

“They’re just… always asking whether I’m eating enough and if I’m stressed and getting enough rest and that I look tense. But I really am okay. And I want you to be okay as well!”

“I will be, once you have rested. How’s that sound?”

With great disdain Silver lowered his ears and bared his teeth. But Sonic’s incorrigible smile only broadened as the speedster winked, which made it hard to glower. Thus Silver settled on the next best thing, which was a miffed frown and a more-miffed cross of his arms… except that seemed to make Sonic’s amusement only greater, the speedster very clearly muffling a chuckle.

And, in a way Silver couldn’t place in the slightest, that made it hard to act mad.

“Fine,” the psychic relented. Some scoots and shimmies later he’d settled on the rock again, this time on his stomach and merely flicking an ear at Sonic’s word of thanks. It left them resting quietly side-by-side, Sonic leaning against another rock jutting out and Silver basking in the sunbeams.

Or he tried, at least. With a deep frown on his face the psychic shifted, and stirred, and did his very best to just lay still and absorb all the warmth of the spring sun into his pelt, and yet he found it impossible.

“Got the fussies?” Sonic inquired after a few minutes of relative silence interrupted by grey fur rubbing all over the stone, Silver grumbling.

“I guess. I just want to go.”

“You look tense. You won’t be relaxed and recharged like this.”

“I know,” Silver snapped back. “And that means that I won’t be able to fight well in the GUN base and that means we won’t get the Emeralds and that means you won’t be able to go home. Any ideas on what I can do to make sure that doesn’t happen?!”

Had Sonic opened his mouth the moment Silver went off on his tangent…

Nothing came out.

The speedster’s face did shift as Silver angrily glared his way. But not towards anything angry in turn. Instead it almost seemed to take on a look of…  

Something more uncertain?

“Well, there’s of course… Hm,” followed, a gloved finger rubbing over a peach muzzle. “But perhaps that’s a bit…”

Silver warily looked the other all over. “A bit what?”

With a clearing of his throat Sonic gestured in Silver’s general direction. “I’ve got… an idea, but you might not like it.”

“An idea is an idea,” Silver shrugged back. “I’ve got none myself. What is it?”

“Good point. May I… touch your forehead?”

A long silence followed. Silver stared, and Sonic sat a mite awkwardly. Didn’t he know how much Silver disliked getting grabbed?!

…Though, getting grabbed was not the same as getting touched, Silver found himself forced to conclude. And if he mulled and pondered more, somehow he felt like it perhaps wouldn’t be so bad? Almost like Sonic had done it before…?

“…If you want to,” the psychic hummed, head dropping on an arm so Sonic wouldn’t have to reach so far.

The speedster’s brow furrowed, just a bit. “You sure? I don’t want to do something you don’t like.”

“It’s fine. If you think it’ll help.”

For two, three seconds more, Sonic just stared back… but then the speedster gave his head a minute shake. “Tell me when you want me to stop,” followed, the other scooting a bit closer. Silver glared him down as he neared: the moon was in full view for any Sonic-punting endeavours, should that be necessary. Silver sat as unmoving as the rocks around them as Sonic slowly, carefully lifted up his hand, moving it closer towards Silver’s head…!

Most tenderly it pressed down against where Silver’s five quills met just above his eyes, something softening on Sonic’s face. “You’re sitting way too tensely. Try relaxing your shoulders a bit.”

“This is how I always sit,” Silver retorted. Because it was: his scrunched-up eyes and bristling quills were most normal to him. But Sonic chuckled at that, shooting him a wink.

“I know, I know. But just try drawing a deep breath while I try this…”

In a single gentle motion, his hand moved upwards and smoothed Silver’s quills back.

Silver… blinked. That touch left a wave of tingles in its wake even after Sonic had pulled his hand away again. His spines half-bristled, the psychic entirely unsure if he had to raise them up or try to flatten them more. His skin clamoured for the warmth of Sonic’s hand that now seeped away again in mere seconds in the chilly air of Mountain River Zone…! “Hm,” the psychic mumbled, not really knowing how to sit and where to look and what to say. “Was that… what you wanted to do?”

Sonic’s cheeks looked strangely rosy, but it was probably just the sunlight. “Yep,” got nodded back. “Feels a bit less tense, doesn’t it?”

“…Guess so.” Stretching his neck out so he could study himself in the reflection of the river Silver tipped his head to the side. Not unfamiliar to him, how his quills had been pushed down; but also certainly not how he usually looked, the psychic had to admit that too. “Are your quills always like this? So droopy?” he inquired, scrutinising Sonic’s up and down next as the speedster drew a hand through them.

“They’re good at slouching, certainly. But they’re also good at being razor-sharp, heh.”

“I prefer mine that way. They… don’t relax much. Maybe in the first days after disaster has been averted, but that’s not often.”

“I thought this world didn’t have many dangers and troubles.”

“Well… No, that’s true. Most days it’s peaceful as can be,” Silver huffed, quills already spiking again. “But danger does happen. Not often, but it does. It lurks everywhere too, with Eggman’s robots and bases that are still active. And I need to be ready for it all. I can’t let the world be destroyed because of my negligence.” And that meant that the first two, three days after evil had been struck down were for swept-back quills and recovering, and all the days after were spent keeping an eye on any new ploys or problems that could arise and just helping out others in the meantime. Even if those days did often stretch out into months, with nary any ploys and problems to tackle but with no smooth quills to be seen.

Sonic merely sat, regarding Silver with unreadable green eyes yet no words leaving his mouth. “And why would I take it easy anyway, when evil is always ready to bring everything good in the world to ruin? I cannot let anything bad come to pass. Everything depends on me. I have to keep everyone and everything safe. Only I can do it, so I must,” Silver added, the fur on his spine rising again…

“You know,” the speedster slowly spoke up, “I don’t get the feeling you’re negligent at all.”

“Because I actively do my best to not be,” Silver nodded back with pride. Though, Sonic seemed a bit too preoccupied with leaning closer now- Oh, yes. With a huff the psychic lowered his head so the speedster could smooth his quills back once more, gloved fingers tenderly stroking twice now. In the meantime Silver did his stupid little shoulder-dropping motion, and as much as he hated to admit it, both did feel relaxing.

“There. You look nice with your quills like this,” Sonic smiled.

With a hum Silver returned to his reflection in the river. Just him, still. Really nothing much had changed... he thought. “How so?”

“It makes you look… Not softer, but… calmer. More open.”

“…Calm.” Which was, now that Silver thought about it, not a word that anyone ever used to describe him. Mostly just that he had to calm down, which wasn’t the same at all. “You like it?” he asked Sonic next, getting a firm nod in return.

“Absolutely! It looks good on you.”

“Hm. But I shouldn’t be calm. There’s always trouble lurking somewhere.”

“There is none lurking here right now,” Sonic murmured back, and Silver found himself forced to concede he didn’t have any proof with which to point out there was any danger. The sun shone, the wind blew, the birds chirped, the river whispered with its watery voice…

And Sonic sat just like Sonic, which was perhaps the biggest indication things were okay that Silver could have found.

…But why he thought that, he had no idea.

And as he stretched himself out in the sunlight and eventually slipped into the lightest of dozes, his powers contently recharging in his few minutes of rest, no answer came to the psychic. All he knew was that every once in a while, a hand would brush over his head again, and groggily opening his eyes revealed Sonic.

And a smile on the other’s lips, which wasn’t incorrigible and cheeky at all.

Instead it was so soothing that Silver’s eyes fell right shut again ever time to continue his dozing, and only the thought that Sonic’s smile was just as nice as Sonic thought Silver’s laugh was drifted contently in the psychic’s mind.

And there was nothing nicer that Silver could have dreamed about than that.

Chapter Text

Something foreboding hung in the air as Sonic and Silver trudged through Sand Dune Zone.

With a grimace Sonic held his nose pinched shut as he padded beside Silver. A quick discussion two Zones prior had made both hedgehogs concede that just crossing Sand Dune’s border on foot carried far too high a risk of being caught by possible security, and thus Silver had instead flown them kilometres into the sunset-illuminated sky before dropping right in the Zone’s middle. The duo had been searching ever since, coughs stifled and hands held in front of faces at the torrents of sand kernels and plant fluff getting flown about in the wind. Whole seas of grasses swayed over the dunes, some of which towered so high they cast endless shadows in the orange light of the setting sun…

And the rustling of the plants aside, only the sounds of boots sinking away in sand filled the heavy air.

 “It’s really quiet,” Sonic mumbled to break the terse silence between him and Silver, the psychic swallowing too.

“For a nature reserve, it seems a bit… empty. Doesn’t it?”

“I’ve yet to see a single animal in this Zone,” Sonic nodded back, eyes flicking about. Had there been ample Animal Friends on the way, playing near the coast or flying by in the sky as Sonic and Silver travelled southwards, in this Zone there was just… nothing.

Exactly the kinds of vibes a top-secret GUN base would carry.

“I wish Shadow was here. I’m sure he’d give us some pointers on how to infiltrate a GUN base if we asked nicely,” Sonic muttered next. He actually wasn’t a hundred percent sure about it, but he hoped the mental image would make Silver at least smile. It seemingly did, but the other also kept his eyes trained forward with an expression that probably had to be stone-faced and was anything but, and thus Sonic stifled a snort of his own. Hopefully there would never be an occasion where Rouge could ask Silver if Shadow was still alive in the future.

With another silence falling between the two of them the hedgehogs continued, deeper and deeper into the Zone. No way GUN would put the entrance to its headquarters at the easily-accessible borders to this ruse of a nature reserve, and thus Sonic gestured for Silver to follow as they zipped from dune to dune and kept low in the swaying grasses, the sky darkening by the minute. Amidst the rustling and their footsteps, another noise had begun echoing on the horizon: ocean waves, which grew louder the further they traversed.

And Sonic, sneaking to the top of a dune that was otherwise entirely unassuming, froze.

The ocean could be made out in the far distance, the sandy hill Sonic crouched on falling away into a massive dip with more dunes stretching out beyond, but those grew smaller and smaller until finally the scene evened out into a full beach. And on there…!

“Silver, look. There’s something there,” the speedster murmured, eyes narrowing. Shapes that were hard to make out in the dimming sunlight, even if the sun was behind the two hedgehogs; but shapes all the same.

Beside him Silver clambered to the dune’s top as well, the duo sinking down and making themselves small amidst the sand and the grasses. “You think we found it?” Silver whispered back, staring for one second, two… before grey-furred ears shot right up. “Look, there in the middle! I think that’s a gate!”

And as Sonic followed the smallest gesture of the other’s finger, he saw it too. “Heck yeah! An entrance!”

…Though, as Sonic scuttled around some clumps of grass for a better vantage point, his grin promptly fell into a frown at the sight. As did Silver’s expression, a more wary golden-eyed look sent in Sonic’s direction next. “But… it doesn’t look big or special in the slightest. That’s just a gate. Nothing high-tech about it… I think,” the psychic mulled. And indeed, the scenery on the beach did look very much GUN-like from what Sonic could make out, but also wasn’t a lot. A massive fence that looked so unassuming Sonic could only figure it was very dangerous stretched out as far as the eye could see on both sides of the gate, and within its borders a couple of roads sprawled between some small buildings and towards a pier…

Were they getting bamboozled here, Sonic mulled. Had that lady lied to them, and given them the coordinates to a completely different base that wasn’t the main HQ at all? With light breaths as to not trigger his allergies he stared and pondered, ears flicking and eyes squinting into slits to dissect the scene. Was there simply something they were missing-?

“Oh, hello,” Silver piped up behind him.

Sonic flinched around. What had snuck up on them?!

…But that just turned out to be a far stronger wind than the breezes that had been rushing through Sand Dune Zone so far. Silver’s quills fluttered about in it, and the wind halted in front of Sonic next for a second before subjecting his to the same nuzzles. “We’re gonna breach the GUN base here, but what we see on that beach cannot be their main headquarters,” Silver meanwhile chattered, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to just be talking to a gusty gale like this. Sonic, always down to take the odd and the unexplainable at face value, felt a warm smile blossom onto his lips at the genuineness in Silver’s expression.

Between him and Silver, the wind hung for a second or two… before tumbling about, and giving Sonic’s ears a tug. “Hey, watch it,” the speedster huffed, head giving a shake-

Before the wind battered at him from the other side, and Sonic got jolted about once more.  

And his eyes fell on the pier.

Far away as he and Silver were, it looked quite a bit too small to be landing naval vessels the size GUN had in their possession…

And as Sonic frowned, the wind dove past the dune’s sandy incline, down and down and down.

“You think the base is in the ocean?” Sonic proposed after a few seconds of thinking, face amassing a frown as he studied the scene. Upon closer inspection, some things appeared to be moving on the roads and pier alike, looking as small as kernels of sand from the hedgehogs’ vantage point. Vehicles, or maybe people patrolling, but definitely some signs of life. “Silver,” the speedster thus piped up, giving the other a nudge. “I think your friend has told us where to take a look, heh.”

…But no response came.

“Silver?” Sonic hummed, head turning around to look at what the psychic was doing.

Which was… staring to the side, at more dunes sprawling out there, instead of the beach. Silver’s brows furrowed so deeply they pressed all the way against the bridge of his nose, but what marred his face most was…

A look of uncertainty?

Sonic blinked, shifting so he could see past the other. But he couldn’t make out anything; the dune and its grasses and sand rustled like all the dunes and grasses and sand had throughout this whole infiltration already. “Silver,” Sonic thus repeated, voice kept in the quietest of whispers. “What’s wrong?”

The psychic startled. “What-?!”

“Everything okay? What’s over there?”

Silver’s mouth opened… though nothing came out. Instead another wary stare got sent to the side, lasting a second or two before the psychic made the smallest of gestures in that direction. “…I thought I felt something.”

“Felt… Like there’s something hiding there? You sure it wasn’t the wind?”

But the wind had been around Sonic, right on this dune, and Silver shook his head. “No… Something, or someone. Right there, on top of that dune. But… I can’t see anything!”

“Don’t use your powers. Could activate a trap.” Warily Sonic crawled forward on his elbows to peer past Silver better, glaring a hole into the indicated heap of sand… yet also he came up empty-handed. A big shadow got cast over it from other, farther-away dunes, that rendered the sight almost entirely black with only the barest stripes of red light from the setting sun peering through here and there. The dune looked as empty and unassuming as all others that Sonic and Silver had come by had, that was the only thing that could be said about it…

Though as Sonic stared, also he couldn’t shake the feeling he was getting stared at right back…!

And if he looked closely, close as he could, he could-

Huff in protest as the wind darted over as well. But that action only made sand flit up, promptly blocking out whatever poor bit of visibility Sonic had managed to glean together. “Hey! Get back here!” Sonic hissed to it under his breath. That the wind did not; instead it darted off even more, promptly taking with it all possibilities to see anything. The expression Sonic pulled was as dry as the sand of the dune.

“It’s fine,” Silver muttered, however, before shifting. Sonic jolted once again as he got struck by something this time; but as his head snapped around, it turned out to be just one of Silver’s long quills, that the psychic pulled away again with a jerk of his head. “Ah, sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Sonic hummed back absentmindedly, eyes shooting back anew to the other dune…

But as he looked for one, two seconds more, nothing happened indeed. The grasses swayed in the wind nosing through them, and that was it. “I must have imagined it,” Silver insisted, Sonic given a tentative nudge after a second. “If it was GUN, we’d long have gotten jumped on. What did you say?”

“…Oh, yes. Uh, the base. The wind thinks it’s underwater, if I understood correctly.”

Silver promptly stiffened. “The base is in the ocean?!”

With a more teasing chuckle Sonic grinned. “So is a significant part of your city, pal.”

“Yeah, but the people still live above the surface! Here there’s nothing that pokes out!”

That was true… Sonic figured, because the ocean rippled orange and grey in the setting sun as well, and thus making out anything was rather hard indeed. “I doubt GUN is interested in making sure their people see sunlight,” the speedster hummed. “And besides, it does make it easier to hide the base… maybe?”

…Which did leave him and Silver in a conundrum. Unless they happened to get lucky and that pier somehow was attached to an underwater base, getting to the underwater base would be difficult indeed. There was no way they could just go up to the gate and ask for entry.

Speaking of…

Warily Sonic shot another look at the suspicious dune, but the sensation of getting stared back at stayed out now. That was far more ominous than there still being something there. Also the wind was gone, it seemed; the grasses swayed like their peers had throughout Sonic and Silver’s trek, not like they were getting tugged at by a fleet-footed gale.

It all underlined the sheer emptiness of Sand Dune Zone only more.

“Shouldn’t we have gotten arrested yet, actually? There are things moving on that beach. Could very well be people,” the speedster mumbled, a sensation of a sneeze prickling in his nose and suspicion making his spines spike… though it did come with an idea. “Perhaps we can use that to get in! Get captured and then escape with the Emeralds in a dramatic jailbreak.”

But as Sonic grinned at Silver to accentuate just how genius that plan was, the psychic looked at him like he’d gone right mad. “That is a really dumb idea. Also, they arrest you to outside of the park and not inside, and they take you to a nearby city and then you get thrown in jail,” got huffed back, as Sonic wriggled his ears playfully.

“Not GUN jail? They put me in their most secure, hidden prison once.”

A look of the sheerest, purest, most affronted indignance crashed onto Silver’s expression.

“What-?!” the psychic sputtered. “Why?!”

“I got framed,” Sonic retorted with a far more wry smile. “Tails and Amy tore the whole place apart looking for me and then Eggman blew it up with Shadow and Rouge.”

“Huh. Finally Eggman did something useful with his life. Who knew?” Silver scoffed back… though his face fell after. “We’re just with the two of us right now, though, so we can’t count on any help there. The wind is too intangible.”

And already gone, Sonic huffed to himself. Well, at least it had provided a lead. With that, figuring out how to get there would be easy, hopefully.

…But as silent seconds stretched out between Sonic and Silver, the latter tensed only more. “But it is weird that there’s… nothing here to capture us, yes. I always thought you’d get arrested before getting so much as two meters into Sand Dune Zone. We’ve basically at the end of it,” got muttered out, Sonic nodding slowly.

“It is odd. But hey, let’s use luck if we’ve got it.”

“Luck won’t get us inside. I can get us past that fence easily and I can outrun any people or machines on that beach for sure, but after that… Surely they’ll have some way to block us from entering through that pier.”

“Well,” Sonic responded, “I’m the fastest thing alive, and I’ve got the world’s most powerful psychic at my side. So that alone means that we cannot fail.”

Silver produced a huff that… almost sounded flustered?

The psychic shuffled a bit in place, eyes averting as Sonic smiled at him. “That… Thanks,” got mumbled back, though a cyan-hued hand curled into a fist immediately after. “But flattery won’t get us anywhere. Sure, psychokinesis is the answer to everything, but- But.”

“But?” Sonic parroted, lips twitching up into a grin as Silver jolted and stared at his hands.

And blue-furred ears perked up as Silver’s palm unfurled, and with it a little cyan orb formed above his mark.

“What if I just… pick you up, form a shield around us so we’ve got air, and we’ll go underwater,” Silver murmured; first slowly, but with every word gaining speed until he was altogether buzzing with delight. Golden eyes snapped up, wide and glowing. “I can move underwater with my powers no problem if I can concentrate!”

A beaming smile formed onto Sonic’s face. “That’s a great idea!”

“We’ll go as far as we can, and I’ll teleport us through the wall at a good spot and we go get the Emeralds!”

“Sounds awesome!” Sonic responded… a bit more distractedly, because on Silver’s face, an eagerness shone as bright as the stars. The psychic’s hands curled into the sand of the dune, his body leaning forward like he had to hold himself back from just jumping right into the fray... Radiant, Sonic’s mind whispered to him, and the speedster pushed the thought away with an amused snort. So not the time to be marvelling at how adorable Silver looked when happy about something. “I’m in,” the speedster thus nodded, extending a hand. “Lead the way, partner.”

His hand… got regarded with surprise for one, two seconds. Silver’s eyes stared at it first, then moved up to Sonic’s…

But had he been most hesitant to accept Sonic’s offer this morning at the library, this time his fingers curled around Sonic’s with a far steadier grasp. “Let’s go,” the psychic spoke… and Sonic got pulled closer before he could squeak at the sudden tug. One grey arm moved underneath his legs, the other hand pressed against Sonic’s back, and in one fell swoop the speedster got tipped backwards and snuggled against a warm chest.

And next to that mane. It brushed against Sonic’s cheek, the speedster determining he’d really have to go scold himself for his skewed priorities once this mission was over and they had their Emeralds. Getting endlessly distracted by Silver’s expressions and that wretchedly soft mane tickling over his muzzle made for poor Emerald-collecting.

But Silver didn’t seem to notice at all how Sonic was feeling, because if anything, he held Sonic even closer still. Sonic’s view distorted as a rush of cyan took form around the two hedgehogs, crackling with hums and buzzes. “I’ll be as fast as I can,” the psychic promised, and Sonic shot him an encouraging smile.

“Something like the Emeralds will probably be kept safely in the midst of the facility, so we gotta go hard and quick. It’s quiet here now, but I can’t imagine the same will be in that base. We’re gonna have to fight,” he laid out the plan. “But we have the advantage of appearing right in their midst instead of at the entryway. We grab the Emeralds, fight off whatever security they’ve got in place for it, and then we bail again the same way and just take to the skies or something afterwards. Sounds good?”

“Sounds great,” Silver responded, and then he reared upwards and zipped off.

Nary a second later the cyan grew stronger and the world seemed to still for a moment, Sonic making himself small and weightless in Silver’s grasp. Behind the duo, the fence got left behind at neck-breaking speed-

And then a splash followed, and Sonic and Silver sunk right underneath the water surface.

“Whoa. It’s giant!” Silver gasped, eyes widening. With a frown Sonic tried to make out the scene as well, though it was hard to see through the coloured shield. Silver however seemed to have no problems with it; the psychic rushed down, and down, and down, as the world darkened. “It stretches out for miles! It gets bigger and bigger the deeper the ocean floor goes!”

“GUN doesn’t do anything small,” Sonic chuckled. If he perked up his ears and listened sharply, it was almost like he could make out sirens… but Silver kept racing onwards.

“I’m going to the middle part of it, and I’ll teleport through the wall there. You ready?”

“I was born ready,” Sonic grinned back, and with a flick of a grey ear Silver drew a deep breath.

The world distorted in cyan.

Sonic floated in the stillness, for one moment, two… but cyan and muted dark blues became steel and flashing red lights, and noiselessness became echoes of psychokinesis against endless walls, but immediately  that quiet thrill of Silver’s powers got swallowed right up by the wailing of sirens.  

“Let’s go!” the speedster decreed, seamlessly jumping from Silver’s arms onto the floor. They’d landed in a long hallway of sorts, floor and walls and ceiling all made of metal. Voices over the intercom blared out cries of alarm and numbers of sectors where the security breach was happening, and doors slid open or fell shut as Sonic and Silver blasted off. From the opened doors came robots: Hunters and Beetles, Sonic recognised the designs, but sleeker-looking and faster.

But never as fast as he and Silver could be.

Because Sonic ran.

Silver rushed beside him.

It was exhilarating.

Screams resounded around them as robots exploded, shrapnel blasting around everywhere. “Everyone, get out of here!” Sonic roared over the noise. Silver blasted a path straight through the seas of robots that came rushing at them, forming a clean line towards the next part of the facility… And another, and another, and another…

Trapdoors that were falling shut stood no chance against Silver’s powers, who could freeze them right in place with determined grimaces. The vagueness of the directions stood no chance against Sonic, who could run around in microseconds and determine which sectors were dead ends and which sectors would lead them further. “We’re here,” the speedster whispered with his thoughts concentrating on the Chaos Emeralds, hoping it would reach them somehow. “Where are you?”

Where his heart told him to go, he followed, and every new sector he raced into with Silver right by his side.

“We must be getting closer!” the psychic cried out eventually, after another onslaught of robots got torn apart. It left the two of them standing in an abandoned room for just a moment, noises blaring all over still and new adversaries distantly thundering closer. “They’re throwing more and more at us!”

“Usually GUN has some big robot guarding their prices.” With his eyes flicking about Sonic tensed; his quills prickled. “Be prepared for anything.”

“I can take on anything.”

“I know. But be careful, okay?”

Warmly Sonic shot a smile over his shoulder at Silver… who looked at it for a second, before nodding lightly. “Yeah. You too. And I’ll protect you from anything.”

“Right back atcha,” Sonic winked back, blasting off anew through another hallway that was quite a bit larger than all others they’d traversed so far-

Before skidding to a halt. As Silver came tearing by Sonic snatched his arm and jerked him back, before the psychic would miss the massive door Sonic had stopped at. That earned him an indignant growl and  a squirm, Sonic giving the grey fur a light squeeze as he tugged Silver to the ground. “Sorry. But look at that,” the speedster spoke up, with a gesture to the entryway. A towering sheet of metal blocked off whatever was behind it, the front of the door plastered with huge numbers and eerie symbols and writings too high for Sonic to make out… “That’s exactly the kind of spot they’d be hiding two Emeralds behind, don’t you think?”

In the seconds he’d been talking Silver had grabbed Sonic’s wrist, the light hold of his fingers individually undone before his hand got dropped by his side again. “There. And- Oh, yes! It is,” got responded, followed by a scorching glare sent at the door. “But… I don’t see a control panel anywhere. Do you?”

Sonic’s eyes flicked all over as well… but they came up just as empty as Silver’s. “Rats,” the psychic muttered, a fist balling. “I can fry electronics with my powers no problem, but then there do need to be electronics to fry.”

Carefully Sonic ran a finger over the door. No matter where he looked, he couldn’t detect any seams, any gaps, any little spots where security had failed that two hedgehogs could make use of… “That’s shut tightly,” he found himself forced to concede. “I don’t think you can get your powers inside, can you?”

“Hrgh… Nope,” Silver muttered, cyan clawing at the metal exterior yet nothing following. That left both hedgehogs standing, Sonic’s ears flicking around for any sign of adversaries coming in to attack and Silver’s face souring more by the second…

Until the psychic leaned sideways and gave the door a reverberating kick.

“Ouch!!” was the immediate response that followed, over the echoing of the metal. Some words Sonic did not know but could glean the meaning of easily all the same came next in the angriest of yells, Silver’s hands clasping his boot from where he stood keeled forward. “Ahhhhh… Ow.”

“Aw, Silver. Be careful,” Sonic grimaced, reaching out to stabilise his friend while the other muttered a variety of colourful curses under his breath. And the door had not even opened because of it-

Except Silver froze, head snapping up as Sonic tensed at the sudden movement. But golden eyes stared right into the depths of the hallway as Sonic’s gaze followed Silver’s direction…

And yet he saw nothing.

Slowly Silver’s mouth opened. “…I could have sworn I felt…!” the other muttered, raising himself upwards slowly and hands balling into fists-

Before both hedgehogs startled with a dual yelp as a loud buzz resounded behind them.

And as they whirled around by instinct, they could see the last bits of the door sliding up into the ceiling.

“…Oh! Guess that worked after all,” Silver was the first to speak up, rather smugly for a guy who’d gotten quite the limp on him now.

Warily Sonic looked into the hallway again. But any sensation of things being wrong, of prickles in his nose and quills and bad feelings plaguing him, had not grown any more strong than what he’d been feeling this entire time so far… “I guess sometimes violence is the answer,” he thus eventually piped up, shaking his head to loosen the stress before squaring up his shoulders. Beyond the door, only black stretched out: nothing could be gleaned from what would be inside.

Precisely how Sonic liked his adventures, and thus he shot Silver an eager wink. “Let’s do this.”

“Let’s,” Silver responded, a look of dangerous eagerness sharpening his features in turn, and with the psychic at his side, Sonic stepped into the darkness beyond.

Chapter Text

The soft glow of Silver’s psychic marks lit up the smallest fraction of the room he and Sonic entered.

Warily Silver looked around, not daring to send out more light than his powers gave off at rest. That did mean it was almost impossible to see anything, though. The entire room was shrouded in darkness, with only the closest part to the door getting lit up fully; anything further from that consisted only of inky blackness.

“I don’t like this one bit,” the psychic muttered, Sonic nodding beside him as the duo warily stepped away from the entrance and further into the obscure expanse, that got lit up bit by bit in cyan. Not that it unveiled much: only metal flooring, and no walls in sight. A droning buzz filled the air around them, the backs of Silver’s hands prickling. Had that same sensation been noticeable already in Sand Dune Zone and also just now outside the door, for reasons he couldn’t explain still, now they almost hurt with how much they stung.

And as Silver’s eyes adapted to the darkness, he could have sworn he saw movement, high and far above. A mere dot that skittered about, but skittering all the same.

“There’s something up there,” Silver whispered to Sonic. “Be careful!”

The speedster winked at him, though his quills had spiked up just as much as Silver’s had. “You got that shield of yours ready?” got responded similarly quietly, Silver nodding. He tensed his fingers, Sonic leaned into a battle pose too…

“Show yourself!” the speedster yelled.

The first thing that happened was that the door fell shut with an eardrum-shattering bang.

Both hedgehogs jumped, Silver’s Shield of Light shooting from his palms by reflex as he whirled around. Had that bit of light from the hallway helped with making the inside of the room just slightly more visible, now everything was lit up by cyan only-!

And blinding beams of light, snapping into existence from the ceiling.

Silver flinched with a cry, hand flown in front of his face by instinct. More lights turned on one by one with deafening snaps, Silver’s entire vision getting overtaken by rainbow static at the sudden assault of illumination. Beside him Sonic hissed as well, steps striking the ground, and unseeingly Silver grasped beside him to pull Sonic behind the safety of his psychic shield-

But with that stretched out, Silver could feel the torrents of bullets getting shot their way from the thing up there.

That all froze as they struck his Shield of Light.

With a shake of his head the psychic refocused, blinking rapidly until he could see again. “Up there!” Sonic cried out, a finger jabbing to the room’s ceiling, and with his hands flung out broadly forward Silver sent all the ammo ricocheting back upwards. They crashed against the walls and the original sender, the droning buzz growing louder and louder as the thing shifted…!

Silver and Sonic both leapt back as a massive robot came rushing down. It was shaped like a dragonfly: a long tail stretched out behind it and underneath its body long legs snapped and twitched, and on its back four wings fluttered. Also its eyes gave off light, that Silver bared his teeth at. At least those beams were less blinding compared to everything else in the room.

But that was not the only thing that gave off a glow on the robot. Placed in the very top of the creature’s head, with its white glow muted behind a pane of glass, sat…!

“Sonic, look!” Silver cried out. “A Chaos Emerald!”

A grin formed on the speedster’s face as Silver pointed towards the gemstone. “Victory.”

Excitement bubbled through Silver at the sight. The Emeralds, they were right there! Sonic had been right!! “Hey!” the psychic yelled, hands balling into fists. “Give us those Emeralds, right now!”

Threateningly the dragonfly raced over their heads and spun around in the room. The room’s ceiling was so high all the lights shining from there blurred together into a singular glow of white, Silver averting his eyes after nary a second at the headache-inducing sight. The rest of the place was… rather oddly constructed, even if the room was just an absolutely giant square that Sonic and Silver and even the dragonfly fell entirely away in. It stretched out hundreds of feet in all directions, the psychic could have sworn. And the walls weren’t even: it appeared to Silver that the tail parts of massive pipes jabbed out of them, scattered around at various heights. And the floor had an odd criss-crossing pattern with all sorts of thick, coloured lines that Silver could make no sense of.

“Silver,” Sonic muttered, leaning closer. “If I say jump, get us both in the air immediately, as high as you can.”

Thickly the psychic swallowed, the backs of his hands burning and stinging. The dragonfly had halted its buzzing, droning circling through the room, and hung in its middle, wings flapping so strongly Silver had to fight to keep standing in the resulting gales. “Snake Troop Dragon’s Flight calling in!” a loud voice echoed into the room, ricocheting against the metal walls. “Two intruders have breached the vault containing the Chaos Emerald! Dragon’s Flight will engage now!”

“Prepare to be destroyed. You’ll be sorry you tried to fight us!” Silver smugly retorted, dropping in a battle crouch with an eager smirk…

Which, though his pose got matched by Sonic, was not visible on the speedster’s face in the slightest.

“Emerald,” Sonic said instead. “Singular.”

Silver’s eagerness evaporated like snow in the sun.

“What?!” the psychic spat, eyes widening.

Another salvo of missiles and bullets got sent their way. With a roar Silver swiped at them with his psychokinesis and knocked them all off-course, he and Sonic left entirely unscathed behind the safety of his Shield of Light. “You! Is there just one Emerald here?!” Sonic hollered skywards to the robot that flew to and fro, its limbs and tails whacking around like mad. And as Silver stared until his eyes hurt, he indeed could only make out the white one in the robot’s head. The other, the cyan Emerald that he knew GUN possessed, because they had used it to send him to the past…!

Was nowhere to be found.

“It can’t just be one!” the psychic growled. “Where’s the other! I know you have two, I’ve seen it myself!”

The robot… hovered far above them, Silver’s yells entirely ignored. A quiet stretched out for one second, two, three, in which Silver stood bristling and Sonic stood frowning and nothing happened…! Before that voice rang out from it again. “You must be the cause of the power outage outside!”

Sonic’s ears gave a twitch, though it didn’t seem to be a gleeful one. “Aw, buddy. How sad there’s a power outage the very day Silver and I come to pay you a visit. Talk about bad luck!” the speedster grinned all the same… though through Silver, a spike of such burning, boiling, utter rage crashed that he could almost feel himself catch fire.

“We aren’t responsible for that! If we didn’t get captured, the power must have been out before we got to Sand Dune Zone already! And that means we’re not at fault!” he shot back heatedly.  “Maybe get your nonsense in order first before you start accusing people!”

Silver grunted in displeasure as Sonic’s elbow gave the gentlest knock against his arm. “Priorities,” got muttered into one of his ears. “It doesn’t matter. We get to stick it to GUN anyway by getting luckily like this.”

Above them, the robot hung threateningly, its droning making Silver’s ears hurt. “Cease fighting and surrender to GUN now, or be prepared to die here! This is your one and only warning!” the voice called out from it, and Silver’s fists balled so tautly it made his bones hurt. What, did the robot’s pilot think he and Sonic would just give up, after all this trouble?!

Beside Silver… Sonic chuckled. An amused little noise, that would have had Silver explode in volcanic fury should it have been directed at him. “Thanks for the offer, but we won’t heed it,” got smirked back at Dragon’s Flight, and Silver could only stare at how casual Sonic looked. Every movement, every gesture, every way in which Sonic pressed a fist into his side and shot a grin upwards radiated confidence. “And forget your power outage. We really need your Emerald, so we’ll just be taking it,” the speedster added, that cheeky expression shining on his face.

And yet…

It didn’t meet his eyes. As Silver looked closer, underneath he could have sworn something wary rested, something that showed things were not going to plan.

But one Emerald still was better than none.

“Let’s go,” the psychic hissed, and before the pilot of the robot could say anything else, both hedgehogs had already blasted off.

“We need to bring it down, but be careful! There’s something going on with that floor that I don’t like one bit!” Sonic yelled as he rushed about, Silver hot on his heels. Salvos of bullets and rockets got fired their way from the dragonfly’s underside, though Silver’s Shield of Light easily ensured none could reach him or Sonic. But… Flinging them back did very little to damage the robot in turn. Sure, it snapped and hissed with every strike, but Silver wouldn’t say the retaliations made it look worse for wear. “Try aiming at the wings,” the speedster hummed next, blowing a raspberry at the robot. “Hey, you! Is that all you can do? I’ve never seen so few bullets come out of a robot before!”

If the taunting worked, Silver wasn’t sure, but the robot did fire dozens more pieces of ammo at the two of them. It zipped all around the room too, sticking high to the ceiling and being altogether tiny a target there with how idiotically tall the room was; that and how much Dragon’s Flight moved made it altogether difficult to land blows successfully. Silver hissed as most bullets either missed, or struck the robot’s underside instead of the wings… “We need something bigger! And we gotta get closer!”

Dragon’s Flight dove down a bit, tail curling underneath its body.

…And Silver’s ears perked right up as from its very tip, a huge rocket got fired.

“Like that!” Sonic beamed, as the thing came racing down their way. “Do you trust me?”

“We established that already!”

“Good! Grab that rocket as close to us as you can, fling it back towards the robot, and make sure the robot stays in one place!”

“…Sure,” Silver hummed, unthinkingly blocking the rocket once it had neared a foot or so from the two hedgehogs and spinning it around to hurl it back.

He hadn’t expected Sonic to jump after it.

Or grab it.

Or scramble on top and take right to the skies of the room.

“Silver!” got hollered from it as the psychic gawked.

The cry of his name was enough to knock Silver right out of his stupor. “Watch out!” he gasped, psychokinetically blasting after it and haphazardly casting out his hands. He could fly far faster than that stupid rocket, and thus the towering height of the room took him a mere few seconds to conquer. With a heaving creak the robot got slapped by psychokinesis on both sides, the dragonfly floundering in place and a noise akin to a roar resounding from the creature…

That turned into the sounds of metallic joints and sheets tearing and ripping apart as Sonic plus rocket drew near, and slammed right into one of its wings.

Sonic laughed as he tumbled down, while Silver yelped and dove right after him. “Thank you⁓” got beamed the psychic’s way as Silver’s arms wrapped around Sonic’s body most hectically.

“What are you doing?!”

“Just what I usually do!”

“You’re crazy!” Silver could only respond, Sonic pulled against his chest like the speedster would go blasting right back to the ceiling anew should he be let go.

And yet, something elated buzzed in Silver, and he just didn’t know why.

A deafening screech and buzz above them made the psychic freeze, though. Cyan curled around him and Sonic protectively while they tumbled downwards, and the distance between them and Dragon’s Flight rapidly increased again. The robot shook itself out, buzzing around far more erratically for a few seconds with smoke rising from its struck side…

Before everything rumbled.

“What the-?!” Silver muttered, making himself and Sonic small in his psychic embrace. From the pipes in the walls, that he hadn’t been able to make sense of, water began to spout. And below them, the odd lines on the floor took to glowing an ominous red-!

“Jump! Up, up!” Sonic’s holler broke through Silver’s staring. With a gasp the psychic did a full 180 and tore upwards again, the water level in the room rising frighteningly quickly underneath his feet.

As did the temperature. Silver gulped as steam began to rise from the water, forming ominous clouds as he raced up and up until he barely couldn’t see anymore from the blinding lights in the ceiling…! But mercifully the water stopped rising a good few meters before the whole room would be flooded, Silver sending Sonic a wide-eyed stare. “Drat. That gives much less room to manoeuvre,” the speedster hissed lowly.

On the far other side of the room, Dragon’s Flight hung close over the boiling, bubbling water surface. It hissed almost as if mad, tail striking the water and an arching spray of droplets getting sent in the hedgehogs’ direction. They didn’t get at all close to striking them, though, and Silver scoffed far more unimpressed-

Except a tornado got whirled up from the water surface, madly spinning to life under Dragon’s Flight’s tail.

And with a lash of its body, the robot sent it flying in their direction.

“Move!” Sonic cried out, Silver clutching onto him with an iron grip as the psychic dove out of the tornado’s path. Underneath them the water radiated burning heat; if either of them were to get struck by it, they’d boil alive! And Dragon’s Flight created more tornadoes, its tail striking the water three more times until Silver had to madly dash his way around four of those blasted things without any attention to be spent on fighting the robot.

“What do we do?! I don’t know if I can send those tornadoes back!”

Sonic’s ears gave slow flicks. Dragon’s Flight came rushing closer as well, and with it those salvos of bullets got fired all over, Silver darting out of the way of the splashes they made as they struck the water. “It’s still firing all its stuff, so maybe… Ah, yes!” the speedster muttered, before perking up as Dragon’s Flight pointed its tail at them again. A second one of the big rockets got fired their way,  curling around the tornadoes. “We’ll do the same as before, and you guide my trajectory!”

“Okay,” Silver whispered back, swallowing thickly. With ease he grabbed the rocket again, the thing held close enough for Sonic to jump up on, though this time Silver held onto it as he snuck closely past the room’s walls… Though they did not spin in predictable paths, the room was so big it took a while for each tornado to come careening against a wall and be ricocheted back again. It left ample open space for the psychic to draw close to their adversary.

Dragon’s Flight had to evade the tornadoes as well, darting right towards the two hedgehogs, and with a grimace Silver sped up before casting out his hand and sending Sonic plus rocket flying…!

Dragon’s Flight dove left, but a tornado came rushing by there. It thus cut to the right, but Silver slammed his powers into it with a yell, the robot freezing. And that left a right-open space for Sonic to crash into another of its wings, on the robot’s other side this time. “Watch out!” Silver yelled, Sonic grabbed with psychokinesis and teleported away before he could tumble into the boiling water right below him. The speedster yelled in turn as he dematerialised and reformed above Silver, the psychic grabbing him tautly. “Are you okay?!”

“Of course! Look!”

A gloved finger pointed into the room, Silver following its gesture. The tornadoes died out in speed and spinning, falling apart into clattering tumbles of water as Dragon’s Flight shook and snapped its limbs.

And as Silver rushed over to the other side of the room, as far away from the robot as he could, the oppressive heat and steam all around diminished. Rapidly it cleared up…! “Look,” Sonic muttered, gesturing to the flooded floor. Where red light had shone, now blue radiated…!

And Dragon’s Flight dove into the water with a splash.

Silver heaved a deep breath, Sonic held close against him. “I don’t like this one bit,” the speedster muttered. “It’s gotten quite chilly, don’t you think?”

“We’re not above that boiling water anymore,” Silver muttered back, daring to sink a bit closer to the water’s surface. “But… What’s with that blue light? And why’s that robot in the water now? Dragonflies can’t even swim as adults, only as nymphs- Hey!!”

Sonic’s fingers gave Silver’s shoulder the lightest pinch.

Indignantly the psychic hissed, teeth baring. But Sonic chuckled once again, that look and smile of fondness that made Silver so happy to see shining on his face. “Priorities, Silver. I say we dive after it.”

“What, after it just made all that water boil?!”

“It didn’t go in there then, so I guess for this round, the water at least won’t become a temperature that would destroy a robot,” got responded most incorrigibly.

“There’s many temperatures that won’t destroy a robot but will destroy us!” Silver huffed back. But as they hovered over the water’s surface, nothing else happened… Only a murky shape could be made out far, far below, illuminated ominously in that blue light. He could move through water easily with his powers, Silver encouraged himself. And they needed that Emerald. Whatever Dragon’s Flight would throw at them next, he and Sonic would overcome it easily.

With Sonic cradled against him the psychic formed an extra-strong bubble around them both, before diving into the water as well.

Immediately Silver winced. It was cold, icily cold, the chill seeping against his bubble and making him shiver to his bones. And it got only worse the closer they got to the floor, Silver tensing. Giant as this room was, surely it wasn’t so big it’d be getting colder at the bottom like what would happen with the real ocean? There wasn’t even any sunlight here!

Except Sonic tensed against him. “Uh oh.”

And Silver, at the deafening creak of water freezing over, could only agree.

With a jolt the psychic stared upwards… where the surface of the water shimmered and glowed differently. “That’s ice. I guess GUN is trying to drown us,” Sonic responded altogether calmly now, almost too calmly. “Good thing you can just teleport us past that again. But let’s stay in the bubble so we don’t run out of air for now.”

“Good point,” Silver muttered back, warily moving the both of them through the water. Dragon’s Flight had gone down all the way to the flooring of the room, moving just above it with the two beams of light coming from its eyes making for an eerie sight. Though… that did make it easy to see that it moved far more slowly than it had in the air. Its swimming consisted of mere short bursts of movements before it halted, like it could propel itself only a few meters each time. “It looks really sluggish now,” the psychic remarked. “You think it’s going to fire a rocket again?”

“That’s usually how these things go,” the speedster shrugged back. “But water hinders things far more than air does, so we might be at an advantage here, heh.”  

And indeed, the water churned and spurred as more ammo got fired once anew. But Sonic had been right in that they moved far slower as well, especially the bigger bullets: Silver could spin past them with ease. Dragon’s Flight itself was easy to avoid as well: its limited movements couldn’t make it get close to the far more nimble Silver if it tried. That usual sense of confidence began stirring in the psychic anew, and it only grew as that robotic tail got pointed towards them anew and another rocket got fired.

“That boiling water was more dangerous. Guess GUN’s battle plans are not prepared to tackle psychics, heh. You handle this one,” Sonic grinned as Silver grabbed the ammo rushing towards them. With no tornadoes floating around and Dragon’s Flight’s movement hindered, it was most easy for the psychic to get far closer than he had dared before and give the rocket a psychic slam from the safety of his bubble.

With the telekinetic force behind it the rocket struck so strongly also this wing crumbled, Dragon’s Flight jerking backwards in the water. It spun around helplessly, limbs flailing and broken, crumbling wings swaying out and flapping madly-

And the lights on the floor flickered from blue to yellow.

Sonic’s eyes widened. “Get out! Now!”

Silver’s body blasted upwards without a second thought, faster than he had flown throughout this entire fight so far. That sheet of ice rushed closer in a second, but with the lightest breath and thought Silver teleported himself and Sonic past it.

As they materialised in air, the ice underneath them groaned.

Silver yelped as the whole sheet shattered, cracks racing over its surface before they burst and broke the sheet into multiple chunks. But those disappeared rapidly, sinking down into the water’s surface as they melted away…

The crackling water, that seemed to be buzzing and glowing like it was alive.

“Yikes,” Silver gasped. “Is that electricity?!”

“Yep. I guess that robot is insulated! Don’t touch anything!” Sonic hissed, the speedster’s head turning to and fro. “There it is!”

With a terrifying splash, Dragon’s Flight burst past the surface of the water as well… but it didn’t rise up further. Instead it lingered there, tail lashing about as it slowly, clumsily, propelled through the water.

Silver yelped as a blast of water got spat out from it, right in his and Sonic’s direction.

With his powers tugging him out of the way the psychic raced through the room as well, easily dodging the various spouts Dragon’s Flight sent in their direction. The water shimmered in yellow, and not just because of the lights in the floor. “Let’s not get hit by that,” the psychic muttered, eyes flicking about. This attack was most easy to dodge, but nothing else happened…!

Against him, Sonic tensed. “This is a problem,” the speedster muttered. “It’s not sending out any ammo anymore. Just water now.”

“Maybe because those had to come from underneath it,” Silver remarked, frowning deeply. That meant that there was nothing he could fire back at the robot, and that meant…! “But we can’t touch the wing, it’s in the water! We’ll get electrocuted!”

And indeed, Dragon’s Flight’s wings – or rather, the one unbroken wing that was left – laid sprawled out over the water’s surface, a layer of the crackling liquid covering it. No way they could touch that, Silver grimaced.

Except Sonic smirked.

“Then we just need to get it out first. Silver, I’ve got an idea, but it’s a big one.”

Silver, who deemed that Sonic and his rocket-riding antics had only had big ideas this entire fight, shrugged back as he dodged another water blast. “Better than no idea at all. What is it?”

“Can you lift that whole robot out of the water? Will your powers be electrocuted?”

“…I don’t think so. They’re not something physical,” the psychic mumbled back warily. Slowly he twitched a finger, his mind stretching out to the waters below… but, other than a feeling of deep unease and an unpleasant tingling in his hand, nothing happened.

“Keep it locked in place in the air and let me do my thing.” the speedster winked. Warily Silver nodded, increasing his speed so he could dive behind Dragon’s Flight before the robot could turn around. With a grunt he encased the whole thing, tearing the flailing, smoking robot out of the water…!

And Sonic pushed himself out of Silver’s arms, shaped himself like a ball, and blasted right towards that final wing. Again and again he struck it; every time he ricocheted away, he somehow went flying right back in that curled-up form. And with Silver holding Dragon’s Flight captive, grimacing but not budging as the robot flailed desperately in his grasp, the wing dented more and more and more, until…!

With a heaving creak, it snapped.

A deafening groaning and explosion noise resounded. Dragon’s Flight buzzed and spun desperately, Silver’s fist tensing to hold it captive as he extended his powers to catch Sonic, racing over to the speedster to snatch him up before he could fall into the water.

The lowering water. The yellow glow from the floor disappeared until no light was visible again… The water drained away with loud gurgling noises over the desperate screeching of the robot…

A grin formed on Silver’s face as he watched the floor be uncovered. “Hey, Sonic. I’ve got an idea.”

“Oh heck yes,” the speedster smirked back as Silver waited for two, three seconds, before undoing his hold on the robot.

With its wings broken, Dragon’s Flight stood no chance to rescue itself. It began falling; first slowly, then picking up speed in the staggering height of the room, until far below, when it had become a mere dot in Silver’s vision, it crashed onto the ground like a falling star.

“We did it!” Sonic whooped, as an echo of a crash and a billow of smoke rose up from far underneath their feet. “You were amazing!!”

“You were amazing!” Silver responded, shifting Sonic so the speedster laid in grey arms in a more comfortable bridal carry. A smile formed on Silver’s face again, and in his stomach he could feel a laugh bubbling, like how Sonic laughed as well. Silver permitted a single one to slip past his lips, a little huff of fond amusement. They’d fought well, he couldn’t say anything else about it.

And the way Sonic smiled at him in turn was the most wonderful reward Silver could have asked for.

…Which did make the psychic frown. No, the most wonderful reward he could have asked for was two Emeralds! Two Emeralds, which he and Sonic hadn’t gotten anyway. But one Emerald was better than nothing, and thus Silver slowly descended until he could land on the dry, unlit floor, beside the towering heap of scrap metal that was left of Dragon’s Flight. Its legs gave trembling twitches… but other than that, the thing laid broken and useless.

“Look,” Sonic hummed as Silver gently put him onto the ground, pointing to the robot’s head. A big crack had formed in the metal there, something groaning and stirring inside. A human, dressed fully in GUN’s clothing and big helmet, that got clutched with a shaking hand. And above that…

The Chaos Emerald shone in its glass prison.

“We can get it now,” the psychic grinned, ears perking up. “Just one, but better than nothing!”

“That’s the ticket. Let’s grab it and get out of here,” Sonic winked back, Silver nodding. Yes; he’d had it with these two days’ ocean-related tomfoolery and robots that did what their alive counterparts could not. Thus, the psychic raised himself upwards with ease, scoffing at the more panicked yelp coming from the human in the mangled cockpit.

“No, don’t touch that! GUN needs that!”

“Shut up! You lost, fair and square,” Silver growled back. “We need it more than you do!”

“Don’t! You don’t know what-!” the pilot gasped out anew-

But Silver merely snarled, and in one fell swoop of a cyan-coated punch, the glass around the Emerald shattered.

“Got it!” he beamed at Sonic, as he tugged the Emerald in his hands and cradled it against his chest.

…An ice-cold silence fell over the room.

And the world around them creaked…

A beeping noise began to resound…

Silver jolted…

Sonic’s eyes widened…!

Silver slammed him against the ground with as much psychokinesis as he could muster, covering him up with a shield. The psychic threw himself towards the pilot next, Emerald clutched in his hand and his powers coating them both as well…

As a world-shattering explosion resounded.

Pain blasted into the very depths of Silver’s soul as he and his powers got struck with a force that could shatter stars, and everything turned black.

Chapter Text

The last thing Sonic saw was Silver leaping at the GUN robot before an explosion turned the world into every colour amidst nothingness.

The cool touch of psychokinesis disappeared. Rubble crashed into Sonic’s body, the speedster throwing his hands over his head haphazardly as a shockwave struck him. He flinched in on himself, curling into a ball that got ripped away from the ground and smacked into everything and anything flying about…!

Dust. Sonic coughed, forcing his eyes open as he gasped for breath. “Silver?!”

…The robot had exploded. Or maybe the entire room had exploded and the robot had just been taken with it. Or the explosion of the robot had made the room explode too. Whatever it was, Sonic grimaced at the utter carnage it had resulted in. A crater that dented the floor at least half a foot deep sprawled out over the ground with Dragon’s Flight in its middle, while cracks climbed skywards over the walls to the ceiling, where the remaining lights that didn’t lay broken on the floor flickered haphazardly…

From the broken, mangled, torn-apart remains of Dragon’s Flight, the helmeted pilot bungled. They groaned, feebly clasping their head; still alive.

…But the bundle of dirty grey fur that laid on the ground in front of it…!

“Silver,” Sonic whispered, staggering into a run towards him.

The psychic laid motionlessly as Sonic gave his shoulder a shake. His eyes were shut, with his muzzle underneath all but colourless except for the splatters of blood seeping over his skin and fur. But two fingers curling tightly around his wrist did pick up a heartbeat, Sonic swallowing as his eyes flicked over the other like mad. Silver’s chest rose and fell lightly…

And beside him, fingers half-clutching it limply, rested the unscathed Emerald.

“Is… Is he dead?” a shaky young voice rose up behind Sonic. The GUN agent had torn off their helmet, unveiling a young man who stared at the two hedgehogs with wide eyes.

Sonic bared his teeth and pinned back his ears, a deep growl reverberating in the air. But the pilot did not respond to that, sitting like a deer in the headlights. The robot remained quiet too; perhaps it couldn’t even be turned on again, mangled as it looked on the outside. “No, he’s not,” Sonic lowly responded, glaring a hole into the man.

“He… H-he saved me, with his… powers…”

“Me too,” Sonic quietly responded. “Was this place set to blow up when the Emerald got taken?”

“I- I don’t know, I…!”

Sonic stifled a roll of his eyes. Typical GUN, ready to sacrifice its employees and everything it had built just to stick it to someone else. “I’m taking this,” he hummed, grabbing the Emerald off the ground and pocketing it with little fanfare. “And we’re going to leave.”

No response came from the man as Sonic lifted Silver up next. Had the psychic already been light in the pipe, waterlogged and soggy, now it was like he barely weighed anything at all. “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay,” Sonic murmured into a drooping grey ear. It remained bungling down, unmoving.

Sirens wailed and red lights flashed in the hallways Sonic rushed off in once he’d blasted right through the also-mangled door with a kick, but amidst it all, a sense of ominous emptiness held the whole base in its grasp. The entirety of the base seemed wholly devoid of any GUN personnel: only corpses of robots sparked as Sonic jumped over and rushed past them, Silver cradled in his arms. He kept running and running while the numbers marking the base’s levels became lower and lower, until eventually it had become 1, and Sonic raced towards the bright light of the exit.

Had the outside been eerily quiet when he and Silver had infiltrated the base, now the pandemonium the beach contained couldn’t make for a bigger difference. People screamed and ran around or stood clustered in small groups, and sirens wailed here too, while machines droned and raced by in the sky. Yet Sonic cared not for it as he tore past it all, too unexpected for anything to snatch him.

Though, Sonic’s chest hitched as he ran over the road at top speed, away from the base.

The fence.

Far too high for him to jump over.

Behind him, more screaming and sirens resounded, but Sonic made a perfect pivot to his right to blast northwards instead. This base stretched out for miles, Silver had said, so hopefully everyone had conglomerated at the entrance and there’d be no people farther away from the main part…!

And indeed, as Sonic ran, the chaos died out behind him until eventually only the gale whistled once more. But… “Crud,” the speedster muttered as he was forced to skid to a halt, because the fence made a ninety-degree angle and curled towards the ocean.

And Sonic and Silver were trapped behind it.

“Okay. Think,” Sonic mumbled, a deep breath sucked in through his nose. Silver wouldn’t be able to help them; the psychic laid unmoving in Sonic’s arms, usually-tan cheeks the same colour as his mane right now and red-and-brown coating his body all over. As Sonic raised his ears, he could have sworn he heard the softest crackle emanate from the fence, so climbing it was a no-go as well. And surely GUN would have covered any other easy way to get around it…! Warily Sonic pulled Silver against him more tautly, grimacing as the Emerald’s power shimmered inside him. Perhaps he could use Chaos Control as a last-ditch resort, but using it on himself had been hard enough already that one time; what if anything happened to Silver-?!

Though, Sonic’s frazzled thinking got interrupted as something cool struck his back.

With a snarl Sonic whirled around, one foot kicking into… emptiness. “Hey! Don’t do that!” he spat at the wind, that seemed to duck right under his movement-

The wind.

“Wait!” Sonic gasped at it, gracefully landing on the ground. The wind had helped them get in, so surely it’d also have an idea on how they could get out again? Sonic dared hope, at least. “We’re trapped. Do you know how we can escape? I’m not sure if I can use the Emerald,” he urgently explained. And indeed, his question made the wind tumble around, a soft caress in Sonic’s quills as the speedster’s eyes darted all over to follow its direction downwards-

Before he yelped indignantly as he got struck right in the face with a blast of sand.

“Blegh-?!” Sonic sputtered, staggering backwards by instinct and throwing up one hand to protect Silver’s face as best he could. A sting went through his eyes, he could barely see-!

And thus he also could not see the origin of a blinding flash of light in the dark evening sky, a bit in the distance.

But that made the explosion that followed all the more startling.

Sonic had thrown himself onto the ground before he realised as the ground trembled and the air quivered and his eardrums shook. Silver’s body got haphazardly tugged under his own, Sonic’s one hand pressing against the psychic’s head and the other curling around his friend’s small body. They’d loitered too long, and GUN had caught up to them-!

…Except…

Nothing followed beyond that. No further explosions resounded, nothing drew near. Instead the wind hovered and spun urgently, tugging at Sonic’s quills. “What?!” the speedster gasped, head snapping up. “What was that?!”

Almost proudly the wind raced away, towards a plume of smoke that curled skywards right above the fence in the far distance.

“…What in the world,” Sonic permitted himself to mumble as he tugged himself upwards and Silver in his arms again to race them both over. Though, the sight made him stumble right to another halt: the chain-links of the fence had been utterly torn apart in that once spot, big enough for two hedgehogs to pull through with no risk of touching it anywhere.

But what had caused that, Sonic couldn’t at all determine.

“Huh,” Sonic spoke to the wind, before giving his head a shake. Make use of luck, he’d said so to Silver too, and thus he merely shot Silver’s friend a wry smile as he readied himself. “I’m not even going to question that. Thanks.”

The wind knocked against his back again, and that was all the encouragement Sonic needed to duck through the gap and blast off in full. A sonic boom tore at the landscape nary a second later, Sonic increasing his speed into multiple times the speed of sound, and from there it took mere minutes to race back north towards Silver’s hideout.

All the while Silver laid unmoving, his breaths strained and body merely a limp bundle of fur that twitched in Sonic’s arms at a particularly rough jump. “Silver,” Sonic murmured, pulling the other even closer against him. “You’re okay, Silver.”

Silver whimpered.

Helplessly Sonic trailed his thumbs over the other’s pelt, the only thing he could do to give comfort amidst his neckbreaking dodges around trees and over rocks and past loops and halfpipes and skybound rails. He couldn’t look down, lest they’d trip…! “Sonic…?” Silver’s voice croaked, another twitch following as Sonic pressed the psychic’s heavy head into the crook of his shoulder.

“I’m here. I’m taking you back home.”

A rasping breath got drawn. “Hurts…!”

“Shh, shh, I know. But you’ll be just fine, I promise.”

Finally, finally the mountains around Silver’s city and then the brambles that curled protectively around the entryway of Silver’s hideout came into view, Sonic haphazardly slowing down to duck underneath. Instinctively he halted in the shadows, eyes darting around, before concluding there was nothing laying in wait there. “We’re in your hideout,” he soothed Silver, finally able to send him a good look in the pale light of the moon.  

His heart burst into bleeding at the sight of Silver’s eyes.

Mere pinpricks of pain, they were, that looked through him so quietly.

“Come here. Lay down,” Sonic figured, placing Silver on his hammock as slowly and gently as he could manage. Another whimper followed, Silver’s fingers twitching. “I’m not going anywhere,” the speedster added, trailing his own hand over them absentmindedly as he rearranged Silver into what he hoped was a comfortable position. Water and medicine and a warm place for Silver to sleep and recover, and in a whirlwind Sonic had amassed a filled mug and Silver’s first aid kit and his blanket and the rag he’d used for Sonic’s headache yesterday morning.

Thank the gods Silver had shown the goods in that medicine kit before, Sonic sighed in relief as he grabbed the nanocream and applied it far more liberally than the psychic had. He’d buy him a new tube if that was a problem. And the bandages and bandaids were similar enough to the ones in the past, though apparently already drenched in a disinfectant, according to the package that Sonic tore open before wrapping Silver up in them. Swiftly and efficiently the speedster worked, until all cuts and wounds Sonic could find on Silver had been shut by the cream or covered by the bandages…

All the while Silver just laid, face twisting and quiet noises of pain hitching in his chest every time Sonic brushed past an injury. “Sorry,” Sonic apologised every time, a groan and a shake of Silver’s head always the response. A sharp breath got drawn through his nose as Sonic finally could lean back, the psychic blinking dazedly.

…And his golden eyes were blurry and distant still, as Silver huddled in on himself with endless trembles running over his body.

Sonic frowned. Something was still wrong.

“Where else are you hurting?” the speedster inquired, fingers lightly drawing over Silver’s forehead as he scrutinised his friend from head to toe again. Had he missed an injury? Surely he hadn’t, not with how thorough he’d looked Silver over. The rag had been useful in wiping away all the dirt and grime, and all of Silver’s injuries and bruises Sonic had seen had been patched up and treated. So then what-

Silver’s psychic marks.

Sonic’s eyes widened at how colourless they looked.

“Silver, your marks! They’re completely dim!” Sonic gasped, hand curling underneath one of Silver’s to snatch it upwards. The movement made the psychic wince, another noise of pain following and his fingers weakly twitching. With little shushes Sonic ran his own over it, ice-cold concern coiling into his stomach. Silver’s marks usually were bright, he was sure of it; he’d hardly paid attention to it before, but Dragon’s Flight’s room had at least been lit up somewhat with the cyan glow of Silver’s hands. But now…!

With a wheezing gasp, Silver drew a breath. “Too… Too strong,” got whimpered out, Silver’s features twisting in agony. “That blast, it-!”

Oh, Sonic realised. Yes, of course psychokinesis had a limit, even for the world’s most powerful psychic. “Did protecting us from that blow strain them too much?” he filled in, heart sinking as a trembling nod followed. Silver as a whole shook still, muzzle wholly devoid of colour as well and his eyes unfocused as Sonic stared.

…And yet, Silver swallowed, before stirring. A deep groan reverberated in the air as the other floundered onto his side…! “Hey!” Sonic yelped, hands grasping at grey-furred shoulders. “What are you doing?!”

“We gotta keep going-!” Silver whimpered back, voice straining and wavering just as much as he was. That ice-cold concern that coiled through Sonic’s stomach intensified a thousandfold immediately.

“Absolutely not. Not yet.” More firmly Sonic pushed at his pal, not that he needed a lot of force to begin with. “You gotta take it easy,” he protested, as Silver produced something that could have been a hissing noise if it didn’t sound so pained. Cold, uncoordinated fingers weakly clawed at Sonic’s wrist, the speedster drawing his hand back to clutch them. “How can your powers recover?”

…Despite how Silver’s face was scrunched in pain, it managed to fall in clear displeasure. “Rest.”

Sonic, who’d found himself quite unexpectedly frenzied in the past hour or so, couldn’t stop himself from keeling backwards with laughter.

The fingers laying on his palm tensed, weakly digging into his glove. “Sorry, sorry,” Sonic apologised, forcing away his chuckles while giving Silver’s hand a squeeze. “But that’s not so bad. Just sleep!”

Silver hummed something back, his features just as quickly contorting back into their small and pained disposition. Sonic could have sworn the psychic looked scared…! Gently he grabbed the blanket crumpled at the foot end of the hammock and pulled it over Silver’s body, before leaning closer to lift the mug with water against blue-tinted lips. “Stay,” Silver mumbled amidst his little sips, fingers feebly digging into Sonic’s arm. “Don’t go.”

The timid plea made Sonic’s chest constrict.

“Hey, hey, Silver. I’m not going anywhere, I promise. And you’re gonna be okay,” Sonic whispered, carelessly dropping the empty mug on the ground so he had his hands free. But Silver laid trembling all the more, head pressed against Sonic like he could barely hold it up by himself and breaths rasping and gasping still . He’d have to help, the speedster mused, be there somehow to give Silver comfort…

Sonic swallowed. And then, he most carefully wrapped his arms around the other for a light hug.

“I’m here. Right here,” he murmured encouragingly, like he’d done too when he and Tails were younger and the fox cub had found himself frazzled by a thunderstorm. With gentle movements Sonic shifted himself and Silver around into a position he could keep standing in comfortably for a while, the other’s head tugged up to flop against his shoulder.

Which… happened rather stiffly, all things considered. Silver opened his mouth, staring at Sonic with wide eyes… but then that glassy look came crashing right into them again, and his head buried firmly against Sonic’s with another noise of pain. “Just what did you do back there?” the speedster inquired, fingers splaying out to trail over Silver’s long back quills.

“Jus’… My powers. Made a shield. Caught the blow for me. Protected me ‘n that guy,” got mumbled out, as Sonic lowered his eyes to study Silver’s hands anew. All the lustre they usually contained was just gone…

“And me,” the speedster added. He didn’t want to think about what could have happened if he’d been struck by everything Silver’s psychokinesis had blocked out, that first second. “Thank you, Silver. I really appreciate it.”

“I… wasn’t thinking. Jus’ wanted to protect you.”

“You did.”

“I’m glad,” got mumbled out. “But the Emeralds…!”                 

Angered disappointment roared to life in Sonic.

With stony movements Sonic’s ears sunk down against his head. Not Emeralds: Emerald, just one, instead of the two GUN was supposed to have. Everything he and Silver had been counting on, come undone…! But not entirely, Sonic quelled his discontent. They had an Emerald, and that was far better than zero.

But still, amidst the hurt on Silver’s face, something cross and enraged glimmered underneath the surface too. “We got one. We can think about everything else later,” Sonic did his best to encourage his friend with a smile forced onto his face. They could be angry after Silver had recovered and then go plan what to do; now Silver needed him to help. Most alluringly Sonic tried caressing Silver’s head, rubbing behind grey ears again and changing the topic with little grace. “Just sleeping will help your powers recover?”

Silver’s head ragdolled down, pressing against Sonic’s chest next. A little sigh ruffled the fur and fuzz there… Sonic dared hope it was one of contentment, or at least of being slightly less in pain. “Or rings,” Silver hummed… before his brows furrowed again, the other stirring as his head moved up a bit. “I... I can't help get the other Emerald like this. I told you not to buy me an apple.”

Sonic laughed once more, despite everything. “Aw, Silver, come on. I’d buy you a thousand apples right now if it’d make you feel better.”

“I can’t eat that many at once,” the rather genuinely-disappointed-sounding response followed, and Sonic couldn’t exactly stifle a snort in time.

“Just one then, later. But now… Rings. Rings are full of energy. So you’ll recover with anything that gives off power?”

A wary twitch of grey ears followed. Silver frowned, before tentatively nodding. “I think so, but... we don’t have anything like that. You got too few rings, and... and you can't go find some. You’re hurt too.”

Sonic smiled far more amusedly.

They already had power in their midst.

Limitless power that Sonic made materialise in his palm, the Emerald shining with its white glow.

Bleary yellow eyes squinted at it. “Oh, hold on,” Sonic apologised, quickly drawing his fingers around the gemstone’s surface so Silver would not get blinded. “I don’t need to go hunt at all, heh. This will help.”

“The Emerald…?”

Gently Sonic grasped Silver’s hands: first one, then the other, placed onto his stomach with the palms facing upwards. The Emerald slotted in there perfectly, and Sonic’s own palm could draw over the gemstone’s top next. “Chaos Emeralds turn your thoughts into power,” he whispered. “Feel it. Focus on its warmth. I’ll help you.”

“Thoughts into power…?” Silver echoed, hand curling around the gem as well. With his own fingers digging against the glowing surface Sonic closed his eyes, drawing a deep breath. Restore Silver and his powers, he implored it in his mind. I don’t want him to be hurting like this…! He’s supposed to be fierce and loud and protective. Always being there for others, always ready to help with whatever, always down to fight for everyone’s sakes…

Making memories of the psychic from the past two days take shape in his mind to show to the Emerald Sonic smiled. Silver helping him, Silver being moody in that way as if he wanted to make everything right so badly he had no idea how to make it take form, Silver all but falling over himself to lend a hand to his allies. Silver, rushing through the sky as fast as Sonic was running. Silver, lifting giant robots like they weighed less than a pebble.

Silver, turning around to check on Sonic with those golden eyes and their unending depths of intensity.

Silver, whose tiny little barely-noticeable smile had somehow been more radiant than the sun itself.

Silver, who had laughed, and who had left Sonic stunned utterly speechless with how it had made him shine brighter than every star in the universe combined.

Sonic only realised he’d been entirely lost in thought when a yelp slipped past his lips at the cold, wet nose pressing right into the peach patch on his torso.

“What-?!” he sputtered, flinching. “What is-! Oh.”

On the hammock, snuggled in Sonic’s half-embrace still, Silver stared… with far more life bubbling through his everything, body and movements and eyes, than before. “I said your name literally a hundred times, but you didn’t hear me,” the psychic piped up. Sonic blinked back stupefied, mind racing… before the memory of just what they’d been doing and why Silver laid cuddled against him like this crashed into him faster than he could run, and he flinched once more.

“Oh, yes, er, indeed. Sorry, just focusing very hard on the Emerald. How’re you feeling?”

Soft grey fur shimmied past Sonic’s chest as Silver stretched himself out. “Tons better,” got nodded contently, the psychic’s fingers trailing over the Emerald’s glowing surface. And indeed: where dullness and dimness had first marred Silver’s hands, now cyan glowed on them more radiant than the brightest starlight once again.

Relief made a smile just as glowing as Silver’s powers form onto Sonic’s face.

“That’s great!” the speedster responded, giving Silver’s shoulder a squeeze before carefully stepping back. Silver didn’t need him for comfort anymore; the psychic could sit upright again, ears perked up sharp as usual, and it was as if a million-tonnes weight had lifted off Sonic’s shoulders. “You looked so tiny. I was worried!”

…Golden eyes looked at him with genuine surprise.

Silver’s head tipped to the side, the psychic shifting until he sat cross-legged on the hammock and faced Sonic directly. “How come?” got inquired, with a tone of voice that slammed Sonic right in the face with the fact Silver really did not seem to know.

“…What do you mean?” Sonic inquired slowly.

“It’s nothing to be worried about. It’s a quick fix, as long as I’ve got rings on me. Or Emeralds, apparently. I gotta keep that one in mind for the next time my powers run out!”

A remnant of that ice-cold concern jumped up in Sonic anew.

“Do they do that a lot?” the speedster inquired conversationally, ducking down to grasp the mug he’d thrown to the side and refill it with water. With such a statement, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Silver was no stranger to becoming so… Feeble wasn’t the right word, but just so exhausted, yet still pushing himself to keep going. Seeing him like that had been most worrisome indeed… And the fact Silver had known very well what was going on, and how to fix it on top, was worrisome even more. Sonic didn’t like the logical conclusion he could draw from that all one bit.  

And yet Silver for his part just shrugged as Sonic handed the mug to him next, the water downed with a few quick swallows. “Depends on what I’m doing,” the psychic hummed, wiping at his mouth with his inner elbow. “If I’m on an adventure, it’s… not impossible that they do. And also just on normal days, when I’m careless. But it’s really easy to recharge them, so…”

Warily Sonic hummed. “Is there a way to make them not run out in the first place? You seemed to be in pain there.”

“It wasn’t bad,” the prompt protest came, Silver’s free hand held up and the mark on there radiating its usual cyan glow like nothing had happened. “It’s just… hard to move, but that’s kind of the quintessential thing you have to be doing on an adventure, so it frustrates me.”

Sonic, who’d not at all missed Silver’s pained gasps and jolting movements and the way those golden eyes had shrunken into pained pinpricks, hummed once more. “I get that, absolutely, but you need to take good care of yourself. Not push yourself far beyond your-”

With every word spoken, Silver’s cross-legged posture tensed more.

“I am!” the psychic interrupted, eyes narrowing. “I eat food and I sleep plenty. Most of the time. What more do you want from me?!”

“I meant more… emotionally.” Carefully Sonic reached out, fingers trailing over Silver’s mark. “I understand wanting to push yourself over your limits to do something important, but it harms you. Right now I’m around to help, but you’re often on your own here. You see what I’m getting at?”

“…Ah.” Staring at his hand as well Silver bit his lip. “You are worried about me,” eventually followed as if it were a very big conclusion, and Sonic could barely stifle a snort in time. Had Silver truly missed how often he’d been worried about the other so far?

“That’s indeed what’s up, yep.”

Grey arms crossed over each other, mug getting dropped on the ground again. “I don’t want that. There’s far more important things in the world to be worried about than me.”

“Hey, I just care about my friends. I can’t help that,” Sonic smiled back-

Though it stilled at the utterly confused way Silver blinked at him.

Which got followed by a long, long silence.

Sonic stood with his eyebrow raising. Silver stared, a look of the most genuine, deep, completely baffled surprise on his face. But for what reason, Sonic had no idea…

Until the silence got broken as Silver breathed out a single word.

“Friends.”

Sonic’s head tipped to the side. “Yep. That’s what I said.”

“…We’re friends?”

Once again, Sonic found himself surprised by just how quiet Silver could be.

“Of course we’re friends,” the speedster responded, lips curling up into a fond smile anew. “Did you not know that?”

Golden eyes stared at Sonic for what felt like ages, or at least ample time for Sonic to find himself caught in their depths again. Silver’s brows furrowed, the breaths he drew were so light his chest barely moved… before his gaze dropped, to his lap. “Honestly, I… didn’t really think about that. At all,” followed, altogether softly. “I thought you were just being nice to me. Like how you’re nice to everyone else too. But… I dunno. I guess I figured you’re just friends with everyone you meet, somehow. But I didn’t think we’d… You know?”

“I’m friends with a lot of people, but not everybody. I’ve got tons more acquaintances than I have friends.” With a curious hum Sonic studied the other, a chuckle following. “But I’d say you and I are absolutely friends, not just acquaintances, Silver. Why wouldn’t we be friends?”

“Well! We…” the psychic began to respond, head shooting up… before that fell silent too, no words of explanation following. Instead Silver pulled a very difficult pondering face, ears giving slow twitches. The sight of it made Sonic laugh softly to himself, for Silver looked very adorable indeed like this-

And then that humour promptly fell into nothing at the words that followed. “I guess I just don’t really have any friends myself.”

Sonic blinked. “You don’t?”

“Well, I… Okay, that’s not true. I’ve got the wind. We’re friends, I think.”

“Right,” Sonic responded slowly, as Silver swallowed and sent a look over his shoulder at the crack in the one wall encasing his hideout, that the city could be seen out of.

“But other than that…”

Another silence fell. Sonic quietly pondered to himself in it, as Silver shifted on the hammock. The psychic seemed to live entirely by the notion that everything had to depend on him, that only he could solve all the world’s troubles and woes… But in that, didn’t he have a lot of friends too? “You know, I think that you’re friends with many more people than just me, actually,” Sonic broke the quiet first.

 Immediately Silver’s head snapped up, his staring returning. “I am?”

“Absolutely! Aren’t you friends with the people from the library, who like that you help them and who want you to be warm and safe in winter? Or Elio? Maybe even the guards? They’re friends with you because they’re grateful you help them, and they want to help you in turn. That’s also friendship,” the speedster explained… though something more wary formed on Silver’s face at every word spoken, until eventually the other shook his head firmly.

“I help them because it’s the right thing to do. There’s so much I can do that nobody else can, because of my powers. It’d be irresponsible to not use them for the greater good, and I don’t want anything back for that!”

“But the fact everyone you help wants to return the love you give them makes them your friends, Silver. If you want them to be,” Sonic warmly told his pal. Who, actually, looked rather concerned… Selflessness could be lethal, Sonic settled on, but he knew very well that saying that to Silver would only make the other miffed. Thus he smiled, a wink sent the other’s way. “Friendship doesn’t have to be difficult! It can be as easy as liking someone and them liking you back. Or it can be the biggest, most marvellous and wonderful bond you have in your life. There’s so many ways you can be friends with people, it’s hard to do it wrong.”

Grey ears gave slow twitches as Sonic spoke, Silver’s hand rubbing over his muzzle. “That… makes it sound a lot easier than I always thought,” followed, almost hesitantly. “I thought becoming friends with any possible person was… you know, really big! And important! Something you only become when you’re really liked by someone else.”

Sonic, who knew very well by know that Silver treated every single thing he concerned himself with as really big and important, stifled a fond snort. “Sometimes things can be big and important but easy at the same time,” he responded. “And I do really like being friends with you, I promise.”

That elicited another silence, Silver shifting on the hammock anew as Sonic stood at his side. “Why?” the psychic eventually piped up. “How come? What makes you like it?”

“I like being friends with you, because you’re you.”

“But I’m not doing anything special.”

“You’re you, and that is the most special thing you can be. There is nobody who can be you as well as you can. And who you are, I just happen to like.”

With every new word, Silver’s eyes seemed to widen just a bit. And he leaned forward just a bit too, and his ears perked up just a bit too, and his entire face seemed to light up just a bit too, until Sonic knew for sure he would be sucked into and be cherished forever in that look of…

Gratitude.

And before Sonic could smile and tell Silver everything was alright and would end up alright no matter what happened, the psychic had scrambled over the edge of the hammock, and-!

Grey-furred arms flung around Sonic’s body, as Silver pulled Sonic into the tightest, tautest, most breath-catching embrace.

Sonic froze.

An ache jolted through his shoulder as Silver’s head slammed into there. “Thank you. Just… thank you,” got murmured out, muffled into Sonic’s skin.

Sonic found it quite hard to respond, because he was completely short-circuiting.

For starters, Silver’s nose nuzzled through Sonic’s fur. And the psychic also pressed against Sonic so tautly his heartbeat echoed into Sonic’s chest like it was the speedster’s own, heat radiating from his grey pelt and hands digging in Sonic’s back. And a purr rumbled in Silver’s chest alongside that heartbeat, his head rubbed against Sonic’s cheek, he held on as if he never wanted to let go…! “I’d be really happy to be friends with you,” Sonic could make out. “You’re really different than I thought you were.”

Sonic mentally kicked at himself until his tongue agreed to cooperate again. “Why’s that?” he managed to bring out in a tone of voice that he hoped sounded like usual, and not all croaky and flustered.

If Silver noticed, he didn’t indicate as such, and thus Sonic deemed it safe to assume he hadn’t. “I always thought you were really loud, but you can also be quiet. And I thought you were really smug and full of yourself, but you’re not. Or not as much as I always figured. But when you are, I don’t mind it at all,” the psychic responded, head moving up a bit until his chin rested on Sonic’s shoulder next. All Sonic’s tongue-wrangling promptly went down the drain anew. “And you’re just… nice to me. I don’t know how to describe it.”

“Sometimes… words aren’t needed. Actions weigh louder,” Sonic produced next, still rather awkwardly.

Which also wasn’t the smartest thing to say, because if possible, Silver’s embrace became only more snug.

…And yet Sonic had long melted into it.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Sonic moved up his hands to rest them against Silver’s back in turn, the lightest touch trailing past grey quills and soft fur and that mane, hanging there so alluringly. “It’s okay,” he whispered into a grey ear, that sat right next to his muzzle. “And you’re welcome. I’m glad we’re friends too.”

“Thank you,” Silver repeated again, arms loosening as he stepped backwards… but not before his forehead smushed against Sonic’s cheek, quite like a cat’s headbutt. If possible, Sonic melted only more. What was going on with him?!

But before Sonic could ask either himself or Silver that, the psychic turned around again-

And jolted.

And Sonic’s sensation of strange delight dissipated like snow in the sun as Silver leaned over his hammock, before turning around with in his palm the Emerald.

Their one Emerald.

A heavy silence fell as both hedgehogs stared at the singular gemstone... until Silver moved his head up, and golden eyes overflowing with concern met Sonic’s own as the psychic tensed. “With just one," got whispered, "we can’t get you home.”

And once again, but for a very different reason this time, Sonic didn’t know what to say.

Chapter Text

Silver’s place really didn’t make for the most convenient living quarters, Sonic couldn’t put it any other way.

At his insistence Silver had sunk down by the campfire, cross-legged on the grass with the blanket wrapped around his shoulders while he and Sonic set the pieces of wood alight. That had immediately elicited a cloud of embers and smoke in the cold wind howling by, though Silver had assured Sonic that was just normal wind, not his intangible companion. Sonic, coughing his lungs out, hadn’t cared much for the distinction.

With his fur fluffed up to the max the speedster huddled in front of the flames, a deep frown marring his face. From the chilly spring night air, but also…

“Those rats,” Silver was the first to break the heavy silence between them. Their singular Emerald sat clutched in his palm… The smouldering cinders of rage in Silver’s eyes got reflected in its sides with a dangerous shimmer. “Now what are we going to do?! We need to get the second one from them immediately!”

Sonic swallowed, hands held out over the fire. “Silver… I think attacking a GUN base again is tantamount to suicide,” he vocalised the thoughts that had been mulling through his head extensively. Though, his words only made the psychic bristle only more, golden eyes scorching a hole in Sonic next.

“Why?!”

“They know we’re after the Emeralds now. They know we have one. If that guy who operated the robot blabs, and he will, they’ll easily conclude that we want their second one as well,” Sonic explained. “They’ll be upping their defences to an impossible degree for sure. We can keep it as a final option, but I’d rather not risk it.”

Silver’s teeth gleamed orange from the fire as they bared. “Then what are we going to do?! We gotta get you home someday!”

“Go search the old-fashioned way again.”

“Back to Special Stage portals, that, if I may be so free as to jog your memory, weren’t appearing.”

“Special Stages are finicky. Perhaps we’ll have better luck now that some time has passed. Or maybe we just need to go to a different Zone,” Sonic shrugged back. “Silver, I promise you, we’ll figure this out soon enough. Now it’s late, and cold, and we should eat, but those are all things we can do something about. Tomorrow we can think about the Emeralds.”

“Are you hungry?” was the one thing Silver plucked out of Sonic’s assurances. “I’ve got the carrot cake!”

Sonic opened his mouth to tell Silver to not push himself… though Silver had long jumped up, blanket falling off his shoulders and tumbling to the ground. With two hectic steps the psychic dove towards his bags and tore one out of the stack with scrambles and psychokinetic tugs galore, the thing falling onto the ground with a heavy thud. “Here!” got hummed as Silver tore at the zipper and yanked a container out of its depths. It promptly got pushed into Sonic’s hands as Silver made his way back to the fire just as hectically, the two slices of cake inside crumbling a bit under the torment. “You take them,” Sonic got urged. “And if you’re cold, you can get my blanket as well.”

With a wry smile forming on his face Sonic shook his head. “You keep it. You need it more than I do.”

That made the hecticness falter, Silver’s ears giving a twitch Sonic would describe as uncertain. “…Okay, well… Let me know if you change your mind. It’s all yours if you need it,” eventually followed.

“I will,” Sonic nodded back lightly. Silver studied him for a moment with a look that stared Sonic’s eyes right down, the psychic’s head tipping to the side and a worried frown forming on his face. But it got followed by a minute shake of the other’s head, and that left the two of them in another silence, Silver sending the Emerald that had fallen to the ground in all the chaos a scorching look before sighing deeply and picking it up. It disappeared in a zip of light as a cyan-hued fist clenched, the psychic huddling in on himself after. Also Sonic made himself small as could be; even with the fire, the gale was chilly. “I think it’s going to rain,” the speedster remarked after a few minutes, in which he’d been absentmindedly holding onto the container with no intent to take a bite out of its contents. Even if hungry, he didn’t feel like eating while Silver had given himself nothing. “It’s rainwind that’s coming in.”

With a jolt Silver looked up from where he’d been plucking at the bandages wrapped around his arms, Sonic following his gaze skywards. Dark clouds, that had been looming far farther on the horizon, had steadily come closer; the moon had been altogether swallowed up behind them. Only the city in the distance gave off a sea of light. “Spring showers,” the psychic muttered, pushing himself upright again. “You get used to it. I’m not sure if we will get one, though… but let’s pack up, just in case.”

And with that he’d already ran off once again before Sonic could offer his help, a glow of cyan overtaking the whole hideout and the few items Sonic had used to patch Silver up taking to floating. “Doesn’t all your stuff get soaked whenever it rains?” Sonic inquired, standing up as well all the same. He wouldn’t let Silver do all the work on his own, injured and downtrodden as his friend was.

“My bags are watertight,” the psychic responded from where he stood cramming all his goodies into them. “And I’ve got the tarp, remember?”

“Yeah, but… What if it starts raining when you’re already sleeping, and you hadn’t realised you had to put it up?”

“I’ll get soaked. It’s no big deal,” Sonic could make out from the grunts and fussing while Silver fought to push one bag into the whole stack of others. “The bigger problem is the campfire. I can’t constantly keep it covered up with my powers; they’ll disappear when I fall asleep. That makes it, er… hard to cook. Sometimes. When everything is wet and stuff.”

Sonic was primed and ready to comment on how that seemed highly probable to ensure Silver didn’t get enough chances to eat properly-

“But I can get protein bars and such in the city and you don’t need to cook those. And everyone gives me their cakes and food and stuff, remember?” the psychic cut right through whatever protest Sonic wanted to form, as if he’d known exactly what Sonic was going to say. Golden eyes leered over a grey shoulder, altogether forceful. “Speaking of, go eat yours. You need the food.”

“After we wrapped this up.” Didactically Sonic snapped the lid of the container back on it, before placing it where he’d been sitting. Something rested on his tongue, that he desired to say…

The hope that Silver would listen fluttered in his chest like a little bird ready to leave the nest.

“I’m thinking,” Sonic hummed slowly, measuring out compliments and concerns and how to leave the conversation open yet also urge Silver to at least consider his words. “You’ve got a lovely spot here, absolutely! But it also seems to have some… inconveniences.”

“It’s just me,” got responded with a swift, infinite callousness. “It doesn’t matter that it’s inconvenient.”

“It matters because you matter,” Sonic frankly responded.

Silver’s haphazard fighting with his bags hitched.

For a second it was as if the psychic stood frozen completely, his face obscured from Sonic with how his back was turned the speedster’s way. But a halfhearted shrugged followed eventually, Silver turning away from the walls and grabbing the tarp that laid discarded beside the trees to tug it over their branches with his powers. “Sure,” got mumbled out, a small word in the silence that had been stretching out between the duo.

With a grimace as he left the relative warmth around the campfire Sonic walked through the hideout as well, checking for any other loose objects a storm could send around. “Have you ever considered moving somewhere else?”

“Too dangerous,” Silver responded immediately, quills spiking. “That man wants me dead, Sonic. He wants us all dead, but he hates me more than anyone else for undoing his plans. What do you think the first thing will be that he does if he ever comes back? He’ll raze wherever he can find me to the ground. And if it’s just me, it’s sad because I’ll have lost my hideout, but that’s it. If it’s in the city, millions of people would be killed!”

“I thought your nemesis was left in the Ifrit’s dimension.”

“Yeah. And, I mean, there’s not really anything there… except for the Ifrit, which hopefully has long eaten him. But I can’t trust that, Sonic. I can’t put so many people at risk because I want to move somewhere with a roof over my head. And climate control.”

Sonic tensed as the psychic rubbed his hands over his bandaged arms. He’d yet to forget just how scrawny Silver was, how bony and lanky underneath his fur and that huge white mane… “You were cold, right?” followed all the same, however, golden eyes scrutinising Sonic all over as if the speedster was the one who’d been so exhausted and hurt, not Silver.

It just wouldn’t do.

“…Yes,” Sonic responded pensively after a zeptosecond of thinking. “Or, well, it’s absolutely manageable, don’t get me wrong-”

“Don’t be silly! I’ve got clothes and stuff, I can get you something. You shouldn’t let yourself be cold if I can help out.” And immediately Silver threw himself back onto the bags, Sonic stifling a tiny grin of wry victory.

“How about you put some clothes on yourself too?” the speedster continued like the thought just randomly drifted by in his mind, now that he saw Silver busy. That blanket Silver had was rather thin and torn at the edges from where it laid in a sad heap on the ground. If Sonic already felt chilled in the spring gale and lack of sunlight, he could only image Silver was altogether freezing and actively choosing to ignore that. And considering Silver was digging out clothes to begin with… Hehe.

“Yeah, yeah, but I’ll get something for you first,” got hummed back absentmindedly as Silver pulled another one of his bags away from the wall with the same hectic violence as before. Sonic frowned deeply as Silver tore into it, a handful of items pulled out… “I have a hoodie for you!” the psychic called out over his shoulder.

Before Sonic could tell Silver to put it on himself, it’d already gotten psychokinetically plapped against his face.

“…Hm. Isn’t it a bit… small?” the speedster inquired slowly, fingers curling around the shoulders and holding the thing up. The tiny thing, with sleeves that seemed laughably short for a teenage hedgehog and a main body that Charmy perhaps would fit into, but nobody bigger. Sure, Silver was noticeably thinner than Sonic, but Sonic deemed it a stretch that the spry psychic would get himself into this.

Sonic himself at least definitely didn’t.

Because as he tried to tug it over his head, he promptly got very stuck and found himself rather unable to escape from the fabric hold in either direction.

With a frown the speedster wiggled experimentally. Some twisting of his hips, a tug of his arms upwards, a craning of his head and stirring of his shoulders… The hoodie refused to move either onto his body or off it. Flailing his limbs like mad also did very little to dislodge himself, and thus Sonic was left standing rather awkwardly with one hand raised skywards and the other angled to the side. With a snort Sonic wriggled his ears, as much as he could with the fabric catching them. “Heh. Silver, help!”

“What are you doing?” got inquired in the distance with endless earnestness-

And Sonic jumped as lithe fingers pressed against his chest.

With the hoodie’s fabric blocking his view, he couldn’t see Silver, but he could imagine the other all the more. Silver’s touches ghosted over his fur, the hem of the hoodie grasped. “I’ll tug it down, hold on.”

“You can’t, it doesn’t fit,” Sonic responded into the fabric pressed against his nose. It elicited a horrid itching sensation, and not just because the tickliness of the fabric itself…! Helplessly Sonic flailed some more. “Tug it back up!!”

He could have sworn Silver stifled the quietest of chuckles.

“Hmm. Come here, I’ll save you,” the other responded, as that same light touch intensified. Sonic drew a deep breath as the hoodie got torn back over his head and his face got freed-

Before immediately sneezing three times in rapid succession, because that thing was dusty.

“Do you want to sneeze out the campfire or something?” Silver remarked, an amused shimmer in his gaze. Sonic found that far better to see than the look of disappointed rage they had contained earlier. “Here, we’ll swap. You take the blanket and I’ll take the hoodie. So we’ll both be warm.”

Sonic’s ears perked right up. “If you’re sure,” the speedster responded casual as could be, any more victorious smirks muffled and hidden. Fabric wrapped around his shoulders and back nary a second later, the edges of the blanket bundled together against his chest… And Silver for his part grabbed the hoodie and tugged it over his head as well…

Before becoming as twisty and tuggy and jumpy as Sonic had been.

With Silver now fighting to cram himself into the clothing item, Sonic raised an eyebrow. Seemed like his suspicions had been right. “Here, let me help you too,” the speedster piped up, grabbing the hoodie’s hem and carefully smoothing it down. With that and some interesting coils of Silver’s chest the psychic could tug his head out of the hoodie’s neckline, quills altogether in disarray and that mane of his sticking out in clumps and fuzz galore.

Green eyes met gold.

Sonic had begun laughing before he so much as realised.

And that made Silver laugh too. With a snort the psychic shook his head, and cyan battered at Sonic; but not at all roughly, or with annoyance. Instead the psychic powers nuzzled over Sonic’s skin in a way the speedster could only describe as fond. “What’s so funny?!” got protested, grey spines smoothed back with a sweep of Silver’s hand as Sonic snorted.

“Pal, that thing is way too small for you.”

“I’ve only had it for a few years! It still… fits. With some imagination.”

As if to convince Sonic Silver twisted and turned some more, arms stretched out, and Sonic decided not to comment on how that made the hoodie ride up all the way to the bottom of his mane. “I think you’ve grown in that time,” the speedster cheekily pointed out instead, which earned him an eager nod.

“Well, that’s good! Would be weird if I was still the same size after all those years.”

“Amy should take you thrifting one day. She’s an expert at finding the best stuff for the lowest price.” And Amy would surely love to meet Silver and hang out with him-

Though, Sonic saw as his heart sunk, Silver’s face had fallen again. “For that we gotta get you home first,” got sighed out, grey ears drooping.

Gently Sonic reached out to tug the hoodie down more. “Thoughts for tomorrow. Come sit by the fire with me. And eat some of the cake as well,” he urged, guiding the both of them back to the smouldering chunks of wood. Or what was left of them: with the wind picking up more and more, the fire had suffered. Sonic swore the first hints of droplets struck at him…

But Silver flopped onto the ground like there was no issue.

And perhaps there wasn’t, because with his palms stretching out, an orb of cyan blossomed to life around him, Sonic, and the fire.

“Oh!” Sonic realised with a start, suddenly unruffled by wind and unsplattered by rain droplets. It immediately made the temperature a lot more comfortable. “Heh. You did say PK is the answer to everything.”

“So it is,” Silver nodded back proudly. “Tell me if you’re still cold, alright? I’ll figure something out.”

“This is cosy enough,” Sonic assured him… before frowning again. He and Silver were sitting on opposite sides of the campfire, and thus the shield stretched out widely to cover them both up. And sure, Silver had found himself most hypercharged by the Emerald, considering how chaotically he’d been moving around this whole time, but surely that wouldn’t last forever… And Sonic also doubted that that hoodie was doing much to keep him warm…

Sonic startled again as he found himself having scooted around the fire towards Silver without even thinking.

Curiously Silver peered at him, head tipped to the side. “Oh… So you can make the shield smaller. Costs you less energy,” Sonic piped up, before clearing his throat. “And, well, perhaps you can take some of the blanket too?”

Before a protest could follow, the speedster had already lifted up the blanket’s edge. “Aw, that’s not needed,” Silver responded as expected as Sonic wrapped the fabric around clothed shoulders…

Though Silver let him.

With some shifting and fussing Sonic and Silver could sit side-by-side. Their bodies barely pressed into each other, though the touch of the hoodie ghosted past blue fur still every time Silver drew a breath. It was… surprisingly comfortable, Sonic mused to himself. But with that musing immediately came the thought of Silver sitting here alone, huddled up by the fire and quite possibly not wrapped up in a hoodie and half a blanket, because the thought also he deserved to keep safe from the elements hadn’t even crossed his mind.

It put quite a damper on an otherwise cosy situation.

Beside Sonic, Silver shifted. “You’re taking such good care of me,” the psychic mumbled out, fiddling with some bandages wrapped around his legs now.

“You’re feeding me cake. It’s the least I can do in turn.” Speaking of, Sonic’s stomach rumbled, and thus the speedster grabbed the abandoned container from the ground and took out one slice of carrot cake to bite into. It certainly couldn’t hold a candle to Amy’s baking; this cake was definitely a mite dried out and a bit burned at the edges. But it was still tasty, and hearty: Sonic’s stomach got filled like a brick as he took another bite. “It’s yummy,” the speedster urged, nudging the container in Silver’s direction. It got grabbed with a sigh, the other slice of cake nibbled on with an altogether lack of enthusiasm.

Which was odd, Sonic mused. “Are you still thinking about the Emerald?”

“Hmhm. And just… stuff.”

“Heh. What kinda stuff?”

Quietly Silver moved his gaze to the fire, staring at its depths while Sonic sat studying him. How odd, to see Silver so silent… How many people knew his friend was able to be like this too, Sonic mulled. The speedster let the quiet stretch out between them for minutes with only the noises of rain filling it, until the other sighed deeply… “I don’t know what I’m feeling.”

“Are you falling ill?” With his hand stretching out Sonic pressed it against Silver’s forehead, two golden eyes narrowing underneath as the speedster concluded Silver felt cool to the touch, not hot.

“I don’t get ill. That often,” Silver huffed… before reaching upwards, and grabbing Sonic’s hand and tugging it away.

But he didn’t let go.

Instead Sonic’s hand got cradled in Silver’s, thumbs rubbing over it. “But it’s things like this. I hate being grabbed, but I let you. And I’ve never sat with anyone like this before. In a blanket and stuff. And if people tell me to eat something or keep warm I just say it’s not needed, because it’s not, but I don’t want you to be worried about me. It’s weird because I’m okay with… with you. And I don’t think I’ve been okay like this with anyone else before.”

With every word spoken, Sonic melted a bit more.

“Aw, Silver. That’s what we’re friends for, remember?” he murmured back.

“…Heh. I like talking to you. Like how we’re just talking now. Makes me think back to…”

Once again Silver fell silent, the fire studied with that crystal-sharp focus that usually tended to constitute his expressions. “Tooooooo?” Sonic prodded playfully. That hug, maybe? That had left Sonic absolutely rooted on the spot? That adorable headbutt, that had made Sonic altogether melt as well? Neither were things he’d ever have expected from Silver…

And at his teasing, the tiniest yet most captivatingly bright smile blossomed onto Silver’s face.

“To all those nice things you say to me, about me. They make me feel weird, but I think in a good way,” the psychic explained.

And he looked positively radiant.

Sonic’s eyes got pulled towards Silver’s lips as if they were magnets. It shone, that little smile. It put any star in the dark blue heavens above them right to shame. The moon and its glow behind the rainclouds could only have paled into a weak facsimile of light compared to that smile. And Sonic wouldn’t, couldn’t tear his eyes from it.

But alas, far too quickly those lips shifted as Silver took to talking anew. “And yet I don’t understand it,” followed far more gravely and seriously and focusedly and generally Silver-y.

An idea blasted into Sonic’s mind.

Immediately his cheeks heated up, Sonic blinking at his thoughts. Why would he…?!

…On the other hand, Silver was sitting perfectly accessible for Sonic’s desire.

“Does it, uh…” the speedster piped up, clearing his throat a tad. But he was Sonic, and he did not hesitate, and thus he pushed himself more upright with shoulders squared up in determination. One hand extended towards Silver, who indeed looked at it far less murderously than the first times Sonic entered his personal space.

And Sonic gently splayed his hand against his chest, fingers digging right into that soft, luscious, fluffy mane. “You mean, it makes you feel all weird in here?”

Silver peeked down. “Yeah! Right there,” he agreed, his own hand coming up too to press against Sonic’s. The heat in Sonic’s cheeks intensified a thousandfold immediately. “All warm and fuzzy. In a weird way, but not a bad way. What is it?”

Sonic, who also felt all warm and fuzzy in a weird way but not a bad way, smiled. “I think,” he responded softly, “that that is happiness.”

Little rumbles emanated from Silver’s chest, vibrating through Sonic’s glove. It made caressing Silver’s mane even more pleasant. A far gentler silence than their silences from before fell, the rain pattering against the psychic dome and the fire crackling while Silver’s chest fell and rose with light breaths.  “Yeah… Yeah,” the other murmured, a slow nod following. “Happiness, but… there’s something else too.”

“I can’t feel your feelings for you. But if you feel it, whatever it is, it’s true,” Sonic whispered back in little grey ears, as Silver’s quiet clicking noises grew just a bit louder. And that’s how they sat as the rain slowed down into a quieter drizzle until eventually the moon peeked through the clouds anew, the carrot cake slices devoured with one-handed movements and Silver’s eyes sinking shut more and more with every crackle of his fire. As the time passed on he begun stifling yawns too, Sonic saw; the speedster had to stifle his own chuckles at that in turn. Captivating, and cute. Cute how Silver purred at Sonic’s caresses, cute how he shook his head at every questioning look regarding sleepiness Sonic sent his way, cute how he sat toppling around with that sleep-heaviness that made heads droop and shoulders sag.

“You know,” Sonic spoke up gently once Silver had nodded off for the fourth time and the shield had flickered out of existence around them again and again, “perhaps it’s time to go to bed.”

“It’s not,” the contrarian response got mumbled out immediately. But Sonic merely laughed, pulling his hand away. The wind was altogether cold and unpleasant as it struck his fingers, removed from the softness of that mane… Later he’d try this again if he felt bold enough, Sonic resolved. First there was Silver and getting him to bed now.

Pushing himself to his legs in full Sonic reached out, the psychic lifted up in a snug bridal carry. “Just sleep,” Sonic urged him, tiptoeing over to the hammock.

Golden eyes, perhaps not entirely unexpectedly, pried themselves open again.

“Stubborn,” Sonic concluded with a huff of amusement. Most gently he dropped Silver into his sleeping spot bungling between the two trees. “But you really should go get some rest.”

Silver yawned, rubbing at his eyes while Sonic discreetly pushed the pillow under his head and drew the blanket up over his body. With some gentle caresses over Silver’s head, the other was seconds away from drifting off… Sonic was sure of it…

Except those golden eyes opened again. “Where are you going to sleep? And you don’t have the blanket anymore,” Silver inquired in a sleepy little mumble, but something suspicious gleamed in his gaze as well.

Vaguely Sonic gestured beside him. “The ground. That’s no issue, I do that a lot. And under the tarp it’s dry, so it’s fine.”

A deep frown formed on Silver’s face in an instant. “Absolutely not,” the protest came, accompanied with a flounder under the blanket. “You gotta take the hammock again! Get me out of here.”

“Silver, it’s fine,” Sonic responded, grabbing the blanket before it could fall to the ground. “You need it more than I do.”

“I’m taking care of you, not the other way around!” Silver objected further, sounding more awake by the second. Now he pushed himself up too, swaying side-to-side before stabilising the hammock, and Sonic could only sigh fondly at it all.

“You’re the one who got blown up today, not me. If there’s anyone who’s not sleeping on the ground tonight, it’s you.”

“But you’re my guest! And it’s important to take good care of guests,” Silver huffed back, arms crossing. Golden eyes burned into Sonic, which would be intimidating if the psychic didn’t look adorably sleepy as well. Though, Sonic could just hear the cogs in his head turn too…

And after two, three seconds, Silver’s ears perked right up. “Oh! Of course. We’ll just share.”

Sonic blinked.

“Er… Come again?” he repeated, a bit owlish- before squeaking.

“Share! Get over here,” Silver retorted… as a cool cyan grasp had long coiled around Sonic, and tugged him right upwards. The speedster gasped, legs kicking by reflex, and body bracing itself as he got moved sideways and crashed right down into-!

The absolute softest of furs.

“…Hm. I’ll scoot over a bit,” Silver’s voice vaguely rang out above Sonic, the fur moving and turning. Not that Sonic paid much attention to it, as he laid far too frozen to even try and push himself up…! “I could have sworn my hammock was bigger than this,” the psychic muttered in the meantime, the already-familiar cool sensation of his powers washing over Sonic’s back now and carefully pushing him onto his side. Silver had turned on his own also; yet Sonic’s nose still rested right in his mane, and all Sonic could see was downy white. And where Silver’s mane had already been soft underneath his fingers, his face could feel it all the better…!

The blanket drew over him next; the last thing Silver did before his head flopped onto the pillow, he sighed, and his breaths deepened immediately.

And Sonic, too scared to move lest he woke up Silver again, was left entirely, irrevocably stuck.

Oh dear, the speedster conceded, cheeks flushing with heat. How did he keep ending up in Silver’s mane like this? He’d toppled into it while falling unconscious, he’d smacked into it while turning around, he’d willingly caressed it, and now… “Silver?” he inquired just to be sure in the quietest of whispers, though no response followed in the slightest.

Falling asleep with Silver’s head pressed into the crook of his shoulder was made all the sweeter with Sonic’s fingers curling themselves into the mane between Silver’s two back quills, and as Sonic drifted off, he dreamt of running through clouds as soft as cotton.

Chapter Text

The first thing Silver noticed when waking up was that his head laid flopped onto something not very snug, but incredibly warm all the same.

It moved, was the second thing his drowsy mind picked up on. Rising, falling, rising, falling, in a perfect rhythm that made the psychic hum contently. But the coarse fabric underneath the rest of his body had to be of his hammock, whereas the rhythm that made his head move had to be the breaths of a person. Which was strange, because so far, the only person that had ever laid in Silver’s hammock was Silver himself.

Blearily the psychic blinked open his eyes. Blurs of blue and peach took shape in his vision, that made Silver frown deeply before remembering. Oh, yes: he’d gotten blown up. And Sonic had been worried. And Silver had put on a hoodie following his urging and concerns. And the weather had turned bad while they’d been sitting together so comfortably by the fire. And they’d argued about who got to sleep in the hammock and Silver had just flung Sonic beside him with his powers and he had to have drifted off mere moments later, because he recalled nothing after.

But clearly Sonic had stayed in the hammock, despite his protests, because he was still here. And during the night, it seemed that Silver’s head found itself resting on the speedster's peach chest while the rest of his body laid half-curled against Sonic’s side, back pressed against warm blue fur.

 Silver found himself appreciating it deeply.

Sonic for his part just… rested, something calm and peaceful on his face as he studied the strip of morning sky that could be seen underneath the very edge of the tarp. A good choice, Silver concluded: there was nothing more relaxing than just studying the heavens and watching how the sunbeams tumbled through the leaves of the trees in his hideout. Even with most of the view hidden behind his rain blockade, the little bits of heavens that could be plucked out from around it were worth the sight all the more.

But where normally Silver would flip onto his back to go look too… now his gaze was drawn to Sonic instead. The speedster’s fur really did shine so vibrantly with that blue hue, just like the sky Silver adored so… And the green of his eyes made a rather pretty contrast with it, that made Silver’s ears flick as he lifted his head up just a bit, to be able to take a closer look-

“You’re awake,” Sonic's voice filled the peaceful quiet between them first.

Silver… did not startle, to his surprise. Usually unexpected noises would be met with an item psychokinetically getting flung in its direction, but Sonic’s words had been soft and warm and gentle. “Yup,” Silver hummed back, head dropping anew. “So are you.”

A laugh that made a tiny grin form on Silver’s face as well was the response to that. “True,” the speedster nodded, eyes flicking down to meet Silver’s. “How did you sleep? Are you feeling better?”

“Much better,” Silver yawned, stretching himself out as much as he could from the hoodie’s tight embrace. Not quite like the hyperboost that the Chaos Emerald had given him, but definitely more sustainable, as if he could keep going for hours again. Just like usual.

…But the idea of getting up and getting ready for the day seemed as unenticing as could be, somehow. Odd, Silver mused. Usually he’d be raring to go, but now… Maybe it was because of Sonic, and how perfectly Silver seemed to fit against his side. Or, far more likely, it was because that stupid hoodie and the bandages clinging to his fur made him all cramped and unable to move around much and thus forced him to stay in one place. Yes, that surely was it. “Did you sleep well?” the psychic inquired from where he stayed right put. The way his head laid on Sonic’s chest felt oddly comforting.

Also comforting was the fact Sonic’s hand cradled him, Silver saw as he peered around. It rested against his belly, fingers lightly splayed out over the fabric of the hoodie, and it formed a strange protective embrace of which Silver couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt anything similar to it. “Heh. I did, yes. Did you notice me shimmy?” the speedster smiled back, Silver’s head pressing into peach fur more tautly as he did his best to shake it.

“Not at all. Why were you?”

“Because I,” Sonic smirked as a finger playfully prodded Silver right in a tuft of fur curling past the hoodie’s neckline, “could barely breathe through your copious amounts of fluff.”

“Oh. Yeah, that makes sense. My mane is pretty thick.” Peeking down at the downy white fur Silver nodded. His hoodie didn’t manage to contain it in the slightest, voluptuous as it was. Though… “But why were you breathing through my mane in the first place?” he hummed next, ear giving a curious twitch… and Sonic smirked.

“Because that’s where you put me.”

“Huh. I don’t remember that.”

Sonic’s chest rose as he produced an amused sputter. “No? Not at all?” got retorted, as Silver stretched himself out lavishly with a yawn.

“Nope. But hey, my mane is very warm and cosy. So it can’t have been all that bad.”

Contently Silver purred at his logic… as Sonic blinked. And then laughed, with that warm tone that made Silver’s lips twitch up too. “That is true. I slept very comfortably here,” the speedster winked at him. “Thanks for sharing the hammock with me. It was definitely better than sleeping on the ground.”

“You’re my guest. I’m supposed to take care of you. Besides, this is the only bed I have to begin with, so it’s the only option if we both have to sleep in one,” Silver easily responded. That made that smile on Sonic’s face grow only more broad, more cheeky but also more fond…

Silver felt like he could look at it for a very long time.

And thus he wouldn’t. They had things to do, starting with finding a stupid second Emerald somewhere. Apparently not at a GUN base, though, so that option already got scrapped off the list. The Special Stages meanwhile were being tremendously unruly and thus that wasn’t the best of options either. And with those two out of the way, Silver promptly drew a blank.

With a grumble the psychic averted his eyes from Sonic’s face and flailed his arms and legs until he’d tumbled onto his back. At this rate Sonic would be left here for a long time anyway, and thus Silver would have ample opportunity to study that smile and his expressions and how it all came together in a way that was just so Sonic. And also, for some reason Silver detected with a jolt, looking at Sonic’s face and that twinkle in his eyes made his cheeks go all warm… and not from annoyance, the psychic pondered. It had been annoyance multiple times, on Onyx Island and that other place too, but now…

His and Sonic’s bodies pressed together tautly, both hedgehogs half-hanging out of the small hammock on each side, and yet getting up was altogether impossible, and nothing made sense anymore.  

“We should go look for that Emerald,” Silver spoke up first, making no attempts to go do that. Neither did Sonic, who chuckled.

“Give us both some time to wake up.”

“Pfff. I don’t need time to wake up! I’m raring to go,” Silver proudly responded.

Sonic’s hand, that now sat cradled against his side, moved again. Before Silver could react, its fingers dug into the hoodie’s fabric and pulled Silver against Sonic even more snugly. “No, you’re not,” the speedster grinned. “Not raring at all. You’re far too stuck in place for that.”

With a raised eyebrow Silver craned his head sideways and up to prod his nose into a peach elbow. “Yeah, because you’re holding me? Of course I can’t move when you’re pinning me down,” he brought up with infinite logic, because with Sonic’s grasp and the confines of the hoodie keeping him trapped like this, getting up really would be hard. And they really did have to start the day… With a sigh Silver pushed his head against Sonic’s arm next. “Come on, let’s go.”

Sonic, however, didn’t move a muscle. “I do need time to wake up. I… love cloudgazing in the morning! Makes for a good start of the day.”

Grey ears shot skywards. Silver himself was having a plenty good start of the day, or at least he felt quite a bit more cheerful than normal. But if Sonic needed to cloudgaze first, he could help with that! “Allow me,” the psychic thus offered. Underneath his skin his psychokinesis shimmered and buzzed as strongly as usual, and with a single movement of his hands he tore away the tarp spread over the trees’ branches.

Warm sunlight cascaded down between the leaves and pink blossoms the moment the sky got unveiled. “Look! All the rainclouds are gone,” Silver determined with a content nod. Little white clusters of clouds dotted the heavens, but none blocked out the sun and her beams, that danced over Sonic and Silver as the latter sighed contently. They’d made it past another night, into another day to help everyone with everything. Sonic could go gaze at his clouds for a few minutes, and then they could get up.

Even if Sonic simply… remained right where he was, and so did Silver.

Silver couldn’t help shake the feeling it wasn’t just the hoodie and bandages and Sonic’s arm that were making him stay rooted in one spot.

Warily the psychic chewed on the inside of his cheek. In his chest, a familiar tenseness and tightness curled, that clawed around his heart with a grip of iron. What, was he just going to lay here and do nothing? Let the morning pass away until it was afternoon and evening, with zero steps taken to work towards his and Sonic’s goal? Just remain slotted so perfectly against a blue-furred side-?

“Did you know that blue is my favourite colour, actually?”

It slipped out of Silver’s mouth without thinking.

The psychic blinked at himself, ears giving a startled twitch... while beside him, Sonic’s perked right up. “Hey, I’m blue!”

“I did not miss that, Blue Wind,” Silver huffed back, butting his head to the side playfully. “It’s because of the sky.”

Tender fingers stroked past the hoodie, in a way Silver could best describe as absent-mindedly. “The sky is gorgeous,” Sonic smiled at him. “There’s so many hues and shades of blue, depending on where and when you are… It’s stunning.”

Stunning.

Silver hummed. Something had happened once, that had left him quite stunned… “Do you want to hear something I’ve never told anyone else?” he spoke up, ears giving a wary twitch. Part of him hoped Sonic would say no, it didn’t matter… but he also knew quite certainly that Sonic would say yes.

What instead happened was that Sonic smiled and said: “Only if you want to tell me.”

Oh. Silver shuffled on the hammock. Yes, that was also an option, possibly. “…It’s just something strange,” the psychic settled on. “I don’t know what it actually was.”

“Why don’t we see if we can work it out together?”

Hmm. That could work, the psychic mulled next. “One time, I… I woke up,” he began his tale. “And I looked up, and the sky was the first thing I saw between the branches… and it was the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen. I laid in my hammock the entire day, until it was night again. Nothing had ever captivated me that badly.” How enraged Silver had felt at himself later, just wasting a whole day like that; and how star-struck he’d felt in the moment, so small and hurt and grieving and yet relieved and yearning and like he was the most powerful person in the whole world.

None of it had made sense.

But somehow, Sonic would understand it, Silver was sure.

The speedster for his part hummed slowly. “Any idea what caused it?”

“I don’t know! I’d seen the sky tons of times before that. But that morning, I’d never seen anything so beautiful. It felt… familiar, but also like I’d rarely seen it before. Like I had to protect it forever, because I’d lose it otherwise.”

Silver’s words rang out into a gentle silence. The heavy solemnness that had entrapped him that entire day lapped at his thoughts once again, the psychic sighing…

As Sonic smiled. “The world is strange like that. The oddest things can take place before you know it,” he responded, hand gently drifting past Silver’s body. “But it’s wonderful that that’s possible, don’t you think? That the one certainly about life is that it’s unexpected?”

Silver pulled a face before he could help it. Unexpected… Sure, surprises could be nice and all, but anything unexpected? The world could end unexpectedly, if he wasn’t diligent in keeping an eye on things. Not exactly what he would describe as wonderful.

…But before he could say anything about that, Sonic laughed in full. “You don’t agree, huh?” got grinned his way. “That’s alright.”

“There’s far too much at stake,” Silver grumbled back. “My era, yours-”

A finger cheekily pressed onto his nose.

“Remember what I said,” Sonic grinned, as Silver produced just about the most indignant noise he ever had on an early sunny morning, except for perhaps his noise from two days ago when the wind had flung him right out of his hammock. “People like you and me, who want others to be happy, Silver. We’ll work it out, I promise.”

Crossly Silver reared his muzzle up to push that teasing finger away. “But Eggman is out there in the past and causing trouble! And he will kill you if he gets the chance! He said so himself, when we were in his space shuttle!”

That warm hand laying against his face promptly tensed. “When were you in a space shuttle with Eggman?” Sonic sputtered, and Silver raised an eyebrow. But he did recall how Sonic had said he couldn’t know things Silver hadn’t told him, two mornings ago…

“On Onyx Island. Shadow was there too.”

That got met with a silence, lasting one second, two, three… before Sonic laughed. A cackle, that filled the whole air. “Poor you! I cannot imagine that was a pleasant ride in the slightest.”

“Meh, it was fine. Eggman mostly just complained a lot. About you.”

“He can’t live without me. I bet he’s going mad right now with me no longer around,” Sonic grinned altogether dangerously.

“He called you a pain in his egg,” Silver recalled. “And he said – or, well, grumbled – that you’ve been foiling his plans for ages. Longer than that, even.”

“Heh. That’s true. Good ol’ Doc just never gives up.”

“That’s what he said about you as well.” And what he’d been seeing a lot these days, Silver mulled. Even if Sonic’s insistence he wasn’t homesick and in no hurry to go back to the past was strange to him still, Sonic’s fortitude with everything they commenced on had been most assuring…

And to break into that GUN base with Sonic at his side… It had almost been fun.

Silver’s face contorted the moment that thought crossed his head.

Blegh. Him, thinking about adventures being fun? He’d sworn to himself that he wouldn’t ever let Sonic convince him of that! No, no, it hadn’t been fun. It’d been… exhilarating. Heart-racingly epic to rush about with Sonic there beside him, while simultaneously feeling that everything would be okay somehow.

Although he had gotten blown up, Silver pondered next. That was very much a thing that had happened. But oh well.

“What was it you said about the army, though?” he diverted his thoughts. “They captured you once?”

Sonic’s eyes had been trained on Silver’s face; the speedster jolted the moment Silver said something to him again. “Er- Oh! Eggman – it always comes back to him somehow – freed Shadow from their top secret military base. Do you know about Shadow’s history?”

“Espio told me. It… I found it sad.”

More quietly Silver swallowed, a frown forming on his face. The Ultimate Lifeform, Espio had called Shadow, and that he’d lost everything and had almost destroyed the world in a misguided attempt for revenge. And then something with aliens that Silver hadn’t made too much sense of, but Espio had been talking far too seriously for him to say the chameleon had been fibbing. But Shadow had been hurting, and Silver really couldn’t tell if that was still the case or not…

A gentle brush against his arm made him jolt up. “You okay?” Sonic inquired, a concerned look on his face that Silver didn’t understand the reason of.

“Yeah! Why wouldn’t I be?” the psychic hummed back. “I didn’t go through it, unlike Shadow.”

“That’s true. But it is sad, yes. GUN kept him trapped for fifty years, but Eggman freed him.” And then, out of nowhere, Sonic huffed more amusedly. “And then he robbed a bank for the Emerald, he got on the news, and everyone thought he was me.”

A vexed sputter slipped past Silver’s lips before he could help it. “But you two look nothing alike?!”

“Alike enough for GUN to jump right on there and pretend I’d turned evil or somethin’, instead of taking the blame for letting Shadow escape,” Sonic responded. “So they slammed handcuffs on me and took me into a helicopter, that I then broke out of. That was pretty cool, heh!”

“Uh huh…”

“Then I met Shadow, he skedaddled and I got captured again, and got put in Prison Island. Tails and Amy bailed me out, and then we saved the whole world, and I got a formal apology and stuff.”

With a grumble Silver pushed himself upright. Indignantly his fur spiked and hands balled; an anger inside him boiled so strong he had to get to pacing, hoodie forgotten and Sonic’s arm pushed away in favour of him scrambling out of the hammock to land on the ground and do just that. “Just an apology?” he hissed in the meantime, shooting Sonic a glare of rage. “I can’t believe anyone was dumb enough to fall for those lies!”

In the hammock, Sonic pushed himself upright too. “Silver, you gotta keep in mind that there’s not a lot of hedgehogs that look that much like me. Plus, it was dark and stuff. You gotta cut the people some slack.”

“I will not!” Silver indignantly shot back. “Shadow’s not even half as good-looking as you are! And you don’t have stripes.”

Sonic…

Made a weird choking noise.

“Er. What was that?” the speedster piped up, suddenly rather quiet. Not that that stopped Silver; he’d just be loud for the both of them, then, and promptly he crossed his arms and raised his chin.

 “Stripes! Where are they, hmm? You’re stripeless.”

“As are you, but-!”

“And bad lighting only gets you so far either. That’s a ridiculous excuse. No, everyone should have known you couldn’t be Shadow. He looks way too… too droopy and dark! You’re far more radiant than him,” Silver continued his ranting, glaring at the sun next for not having been there when Sonic needed her. Sure, the light only made stars dance in front of his eyes and he had to avert them mere seconds after, but his point stood. “Don’t you think so too?!” he added, whirling around to stare at Sonic and wait for his agreement…

That did not come.

Instead Sonic sat on the hammock with rapidly-darkening cheeks, the speedster clearing his throat with an altogether awkward sound. “Thanks,” followed. “For the, uh, compliments.”

Silver raised an eyebrow. “You consider not having stripes a compliment?”

Another noise was his response, but this time, Silver could have sworn it was… laughter?

“I mean, I look cool enough with just blue,” Sonic winked back. “But I was talking about the… the radiance.”

“Oh. That.” Yes, that checked out better, Silver figured too. “Well, you are,” he stated firmly, cyan forming around him. Sonic’s cheeks were pretty pink still; he probably was too hot with the light of the sun. Nothing a lick of psychokinesis to enshroud Sonic and tug him over to the shade one of Silver’s trees cast over the foot end of the hammock couldn’t fix, though.

“Hey now,” the speedster protested as Silver bundled him up at the hammock’s other side, the psychic twitching a finger to make his powers bap fondly against Sonic’s muzzle.

“You look as if you are about to get sunburned.”

If possible, Sonic’s face got even redder. “Er… Yeah, sure.”

…That was a lie, Silver concluded. Even he could not miss how awkwardly Sonic fiddled around. And the speedster was a good liar; he’d made his story to that GUN lady sound quite watertight indeed. “What’s going on?” the psychic inquired, dropping beside his friend.

His friend…

The mere thought of that made a happiness so strong blossom up in Silver that he simply had to smush his head against Sonic’s face again, if only because it showed his appreciation where he was utterly unable to make words form to tell Sonic instead.

And it also put him quite close in Sonic’s personal space.

Usually Silver rather detested having people in his own personal space, if it meant they would go and grab and tug at him all unexpectedly, but now… Sonic had been in his personal space a lot the past two days and this morning too, the psychic mused. Sonic had cradled him in his arms before, for crying out loud! And he’d done the exact same in turn when Sonic had arrived here in the future, and in their fight against that GUN robot. Heck, they’d been sharing this very hammock just last night! If Sonic were to snatch his arm all randomly again, Silver wasn’t sure if he still felt as strongly that he wanted to go place the speedster on the moon for that infraction on his personal space… maybe. But overall, they should long have gotten used to being close to each other.

…So then why did it make his cheeks grow hotter too, like Sonic’s had?

“Heh.” A playful finger booped his nose once again. “You’re blushing.”

“Then you must be too,” Silver retorted, ears twitching and face scrunching so he did not sneeze. “…Why am I?”

“You know that better than I do,” Sonic responded… before grinning only more. “But if I were to wager a guess, I’d say the fact you’re pressed against me like this might play a role.”

With a hum Silver twitched his head. That finger stayed on there still, though, itchy and teasy… He might as well give it a nuzzle, Silver figured, and with a huff of amusement he did just that. “But there’s nothing weird about that. We did that the entire night,” he added, flopping down a bit more against Sonic. His nose hovered right beside Sonic’s, their cheeks were inches away from grazing past each other…

But that finger still stayed, the fabric of Sonic’s glove rubbing over his nose at Silver’s movements, and it made him have to…!

“Ah,” Silver sniffled, face contorting. “Ahh…”

“…But maybe don’t sneeze on me,” Sonic piped up-

Right as exactly that tore past Silver’s lips. And he got snapped backwards as his powers spiked up uncontrollably, while the trees’ branches got swept up like whips and his hammock got flung right to the side.

And Sonic, with a yelp, got catapulted.

Minutes later, once Silver had tore off a madly-laughing bundle of blue fur from the wall and checked four times over if Sonic really hadn’t been injured, the psychic found his cheeks overheating still, if only because of how hard Sonic was wheezing. “Let’s start the day! I’ve cloudgazed enough,” Sonic choked out amidst his cackles. Warily Silver slapped him on the back a couple of times in case he’d start actually choking, though Sonic seemed a bit too mirthful for that.

And how the speedster acted made it really hard to not start laughing too.

“Okay!” Silver eventually cried out in exasperation, after the fourth time of pushing down giggles of his own. “What the heck are we supposed to do to find that Emerald!”

“Get rings first, which means travelling through a bunch of Zones and collecting as many as we can,” Sonic responded, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hands. “But, and I know I’m being bold here, how about we get breakfast first? I have no idea how long collecting those rings might take, but it could well be hours. You still got some cake from that lady?”

Silver opened his mouth to respond that he didn’t and also had promised to bring her some produce in turn to thank her and he didn’t want that to take forever, so it would be convenient if they could cram that into their schedule for this day.

What that train of thought instead made slam into his mind faster than Sonic could run was a realisation that made his eyes widen and entire being light up in the knowledge he had an answer to their ring-collecting conundrum.

“My job,” Silver breathed, and everything in the universe had fallen right into its place.

Chapter Text

Sonic squeaked as Silver grabbed him right by the shoulders.

“My job!” the psychic cried in delight. “Sonic! We can get tons of rings from my job!! Then we don’t need to go travel around for hours to collect enough!”

Sonic… rubbed at one ear with his face contorting in a pained grimace, for whatever reason. “Your job,” followed next in an absent-minded hum, accompanied with a shimmy in Silver’s grasp. Warm hands curled over Silver’s and tugged them away-

Before Sonic halted in his movements, and his ears perked right up. “Wait, your job!” got repeated again, far more like Sonic’s usual eager self. “That’s a great idea, actually! You work in the mail business, right?”

“I do,” Silver responded.

But a bit absent-mindedly himself.

Because Sonic’s hands were quite warm, from where they held his own. His powers shimmied right to the surface of his marks to go nuzzle against Sonic’s palms, with a thrum and thrill that made Silver’s chest flutter all weirdly. Strange, the psychic mused. He couldn’t recall a single time when getting his hands held had elicited such a reaction before. Sure, that hadn’t happened often to begin with; he would go so far as to say it’d happened so little he could count all instances of hand-holding he had experienced in his life with less than ten fingers easily. But it had never made him feel this…

Odd? Strange? Weird?

In a way that made him quite unsure whether he even wanted to go out and get rings, or whether he just wanted to sink against Sonic and sit here for hours?

The psychic jolted as his hands were given a squeeze. “Earth to Silver,” Sonic chuckled as Silver’s head snapped up from where he’d been staring at where Sonic held onto him.

“Oh- Sorry. Just lost in thought. We should leave right now.”

And yet, the way in which Silver tugged his hands back was altogether slow. And strangely tender, in a way that felt fitting but also completely foreign. And it made a silence fall between him and Sonic, as the latter cleared his throat and Silver himself tried to figure out if that something in his chest would go flutter right out at this rate.

But with the warm touch of Sonic’s hand gone, it diminished enough for Silver to be able to at least think clearly. “I do gotta… put on my uniform,” he broke the silence between them, gesturing vaguely to his collection of bags. “That’s really important and stuff.”

Sonic’s lips twitched up. “Heh. The mail service doesn’t accept hoodies?”

“I think,” Silver responded, “that Foreman Marco would actually kill me.”

That made Sonic laugh, Silver snorting as well. Foreman Marco wasn’t the easiest person to get along with, general consensus of everyone working under him was. On the one hand, Silver didn’t really see why: the guy yelled a lot, sure, but when it came to the mail service he hadn’t ever had a single day wherein everything hadn’t gotten delivered at the end, so the tales went. On the other,  Silver himself had also gotten yelled at before and hadn’t been all that happy about that, and apparently “the warehouse had been left quacking for days” from their impromptu shouting match, his colleagues had proclaimed. But from that all, Silver had always figured Foreman Marco was simply a timely person with a temper, and he hadn’t spent much thought on it otherwise.

Also now, the psychic didn’t feel particularly threatened about the prospect of getting killed by Foreman Marco for disregarding the clothing protocol. But as he shrugged amusedly at the mere thought, that irking hoodie made its presence known all the more, by clinging all around his arms and snagging in his elbows. “My uniform is in one of my bags,” Silver thus piped up, floating over to his supplies and determining which one held his clothing. Then he could also put the hoodie away immediately, which was an efficiency of actions that made the psychic perk up in delight. “I’ll show you, hold on.”

“Do you need a hand?” Sonic offered, though Silver had focused on the bag in question.

“Thanks, but it’s okay,” he called out over his shoulders as his powers grabbed it, some hums of jolly nothingness reverberating in Silver’s mouth as he tore the bag out and plunked it down to the ground. After some digging he could tug out the slightly-wrinkled blue jacket from its depths, that got handed to Sonic before Silver dove back in again. At least the hat he wore too was sturdy as always, dusted off before getting handed to the speedster as well. “It’s got the official post office logo and everything,” Silver proudly pointed out.

Sonic whistled as he turned the hat around in his hands. “It looks amazing!” followed-

As did a moment of hesitation, almost, before Sonic shot Silver a slightly-strange, tender little smile over the hat’s top. “I’m sure you look… you know, really handsome in it.”

“That’s what my colleagues say too,” Silver nodded back, chest puffing up only more. The brown satchel in which he put the paper mail got retrieved easily also and put in Sonic’s hands, and Silver grabbed the jacket from there to put on and show Sonic just how handsome this outfit made him-

Before halting as his movements got rather snagged in that hoodie still holding him in a stifling embrace.

Sonic laughed as Silver made a noise not unlike an angry kettle. “Are you all warmed up again?” the speedster inquired with a wink, and Silver groused.

“Absolutely. I just… gotta…!”

…Try to get out, and fail miserably at that.

Silver hissed only more as he tried to pull the hoodie over his head, only for it to get caught in about every single quill his body contained. It tugged on his mane as well, the psychic jolting with a yelp as the skin underneath got pulled at. With a growl Silver spun and flailed his arms, but-!

“Easy, easy,” Sonic’s voice calmly rose up. Silver, with his vision half-blocked and head craned up awkwardly in his predicament, huffed as a tender hand brushed over his arm and the jacket Silver madly clutched got taken out of his grasp. “Let me see. Can you teleport out of it, maybe?”

“Oh! …No, I don’t think so.”

With a thought Silver focused, and cyan flickered around him as he materialised in a different corner of his hideout… with the hoodie still on him. “Aw,” the psychic settled on. “Well, back to wringing, I guess.”

“You’ll hurt yourself,” Sonic pointed out, though Silver shrugged. Wrenched muscles would heal easily enough, that was no matter.

…But as Silver flailed only more, the thoughts that this was not a dignified position to be in and rather unpractical as well clamoured for his attention both. And twisting himself into a pretzel did hurt. And with every tug, it seemed like he was only getting more stuck.

And…

Sonic had helped him get into this dumb hoodie yesterday, tugging at it with warm hands and gentle patience. And now Sonic stood similarly as Silver fussed and fought, eyes certainly twinkling from where Silver shot them a glare, but almost like he was…

Waiting?

…Perhaps Silver just had to ask if he could lend a hand.

“Hey… Sonic?” the psychic piped up. “Can you help me?”

Warm emerald eyes flicked over him. “Of course I can,” Sonic smiled, walking over to where Silver half-heartedly floated and clothing plus satchel getting put on top of the bag. Strong hands grasped the hem of the hoodie next as Silver braced himself, flying backwards…

All in all, it still took some firm pulls from Sonic’s side and a few curses from Silver’s for them to make any leeway in tugging the hoodie over Silver’s head. But in a snap of a second Silver’s world shifted and he shot out of the fabric’s hold, stumbling backwards in the air with a half-pirouette. “Ouch!” the psychic hissed, baring his teeth at the green fabric-

Before realising that this meant he could move freely again to begin with, and promptly his snarl turned into a smile. “Hey, it worked! I’m free!!”

Sonic had also taken two, three steps backwards from the force, though the speedster rebounded with the hoodie in hand just as easily. “Heck yeah!” got cheered out, the hoodie folded in a swift movement and held out to Silver. With ease the psychic picked it up, dropping it into his bag and grabbing his blue jacket from there.

Psychokinesis made quick work of any wrinkles in the clothing, the item smoothed out before Silver tugged it behind his back and past his arms. “Look,” Silver purred as it settled in place. “I look really handsome indeed, don’t I?”

That twinkle in Sonic’s eyes shone again, as the speedster grinned. “Quite so, heh. That blue looks great on you.”

“I don’t know if there’s a reason why it’s blue. The eagle from the logo is obvious, because the city really likes eagles. From legends and stuff.” Legends that Silver vaguely knew and hadn’t minded much otherwise, and also this time he merely ran a thumb over the logo on his hat before pressing it snugly against his quills. A peek into his satchel showed all his supplies to be in order, the clipboard and pens and booklets all sitting safely inside. And beside them laid Silver’s slightly-crumpled tie, that he always kept in there too so he wouldn’t forget it. With that strange urge to hum some more Silver grabbed it and slung it around his neck and-

“Silver,” Sonic interrupted with a chuckle, “that is not how you tie a tie.”

Most disturbed from where he had haphazardly flung the two ends together so the knot would be right below his chin Silver peeked back. “Sorry?”

“It’s gonna get all wrinkled around your neck. That’s just not comfortable.”

Slowly Silver blinked. His gaze dropped next, to the tie and the knot he’d been forming. “It’s fine if it looks fine on the front. They can’t see it because of my mane anyway. It fluffs all around it,” he pointed out… but Sonic’s lips twitched up only more, a suave wink shot Silver’s way.

“How about I give some instructions?”

“You can tie the thing if you want, to be honest. It’s always a fight,” Silver shrugged back. And it was: that knot in his tie never looked as gorgeous as it did in other people’s. In one swift movement the psychic pulled the strap of fabric loose again, stepping closer to Sonic until he was right beside him. How strange, that it bothered him so much less than before to have Sonic in his personal space… “Knot needs to be in front and no folding of the tie part itself,” he recited what he’d been instructed at the mail warehouse; they had a reputation of orderliness to upkeep, he’d had to basically swear on his life.

Sonic did not grab the edges of the tie to tie it, however.

“Sonic,” Silver urged him, “we’re in a hurry.”

“Er… yeah. We are,” the approximate response came. Sonic looked altogether flustered… but then why had he brought up the tie in the first place?! Still, as psychic sparks prodded at his hands Sonic did lift them up, the other clearing his throat before leaning closer. “I need to make sure it’s smoothed out fully. Also around your neck ‘n stuff,” got mumbled out next. And Silver blinked as fingers pressed down on his mane, his body tensing by instinct…!

But it felt nice. Sonic smoothed out the downy fur of Silver’s mane, fiddling with the strap of the tie that rested over it. His thumbs brushed down on the nape where Silver’s head met his spine, and the psychic almost shuddered, a wave of tingly pleasantness coursing through him. Most tenderly the fingers moved from there to Silver’s shoulders, one hand on each side, coming closer to Silver’s front where the rest bungled… “And then you just… tie it like so…” Sonic hummed next, emerald eyes firmly on the bits of fabric he was fiddling with.

And in two, three quick movements, the strips of fabric got knotted together perfectly.

“…Huh. You’re good at this,” Silver mused, head craned all the way down too to see. Exactly how everyone else at the post office carried their ties. “Thanks!”

Sonic stepped back, head given a quick shake before that grin reformed on his face. “Anytime. This whole fit looks great on you.”

“It’s the official clothing. Everyone has it,” Silver explained, one final check of all his supplies commencing before he gestured for Sonic to follow him into Mountain River Zone. “But I’ve never managed to make the tie look this good! Foreman Marco is gonna want to hire you just for that, heh.”

“Strict guy?”

“Yep. He yells a lot at basically everyone, all the time, for no reason.”

Sonic’s eyes twinkled altogether suspiciously. “Sounds rough.”

“I’ll just yell back if it annoys me,” Silver shrugged. “But the other people who work there can’t, for some reason- Oh, I need to take produce with me for them, actually! I promised.”

Spinning around on his heels and with his quills nearly snagging in the bramble thicket, Silver dove towards his plants instead. They hadn’t suffered too much under the rain, it seemed, and drying the carrots and spring onions and spinach leaves off was plenty easy with the end of the tie and then Silver’s shirt when that became too soaked. While doing that the psychic could have sworn Sonic snorted about something, but a curious peek over his shoulder revealed Sonic studying the plants as well, and thus Silver merely shrugged. Sonic was strange like that sometimes, he just supposed. The mere thought of it made him amused too in some odd way.

And with vegetables and fruits floating around them aplenty Silver handed Sonic a bunch for breakfast, and Sonic urged him to eat a bunch in turn, and Silver could have sworn he’d never been in this good a mood when making his way to the mail warehouse in previous days.

Sonic just seemed to have that effect on him, maybe.

…Even if Silver just didn’t know what exactly that effect was.

☆☆☆☆☆

What the heck was going on between him and Silver, Sonic pondered not for the first time today as the two of them made their way through the city.

Was there something going on to begin with? Pensively Sonic studied his friend from where Silver guided them both past the cobblestone-paved streets. The difference between Silver’s demeanour two days ago and now could not be more stark, at least: even if the psychic wasn’t smiling per se, he did look… sunny. With a quiet but content happiness in his features, that made his brows just slightly less furrowed and his lips just slightly less set in a frown.

But, though that did indicate there was something going on indeed, Sonic didn’t find the answers to what exactly.

Perhaps Silver just acted like this because he had never accepted the prospect of having friends before, the speedster mused next. Anyone who thought themselves friendless and alone in the world would surely be quite delighted when that got proven false, assuming they weren’t someone like Eggman. And maybe Silver’s sudden cuddliness and bouts of affection could be explained by that too: him being comfortable with Sonic’s presence, which was a thought that made a sense of fond relief form a smile on Sonic’s face. All possible explanations for any oddness that Sonic felt hang in the air around them…

Even if that oddness intensified a dozenfold as Silver halted, before smiling. Smally, lightly, and just for a second, but with an affection in it that could soothe every hurt and pain plaguing the world. “This is the warehouse where they sort the mail,” the psychic spoke up, an ear poking towards a building as massive as all others in his city. “I pick up my tasks for the day from there, and all the stuff I need to deliver, and then I go do just that.”

“Sounds great!” With a wink Sonic bounded forward, following Silver as they went past the fence and through an otherwise-unassuming door in the building’s front-

And promptly Sonic’s eyes widened and a whistle of awe slipped past his lips.

The warehouse stretched out far, just as far as the library’s floors had: but where those had been filled with quiet paths between overflowing bookshelves, this warehouse hustled and bustled with a brewing liveliness amidst machines instead. Swaths of people, all dressed in the same fancy blue as Silver’s clothing, made their way around with envelopes or boxes or machines at their side, while around them huge robotic arms and endless conveyor belts whirred from floor to ceiling. And on there, boxes and crates and envelopes moved to and fro with what simply had to be oiled precision and a neck-breaking speed on top. “Does all the mail go through here?” the speedster inquired, marvelling at the sights as Silver nodded.

“Yep! Entire city. A lot of it is done automatically with scanners and stuff, but they still need people to check everything is going well and to upkeep the machinery. The warehouse has dozens of sections and tons of specialised equipment, and one of my colleagues – Eliza, from the carrot cake – knows how to repair those. And her brother James… also does stuff. I think he’s supposed to be in charge of checking that getting everything in the correct spot went well.”

Sonic had to stifle a laugh at that callous explanation. As did a woman standing a bit wayward by one such machine, who shook her head. “His job is made a bit more difficult with you always jumping in and getting everything out before he’s done with that, Skyfire-” she began saying, turning around-

Before jolting and gasping. “Oh my goodness, are you okay?!”

Silver… blinked, slowly.

“Of course I am,” followed, in a surprised tone that contained only a hint of hesitance. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Sonic grimaced as he realised quite a few reasons why it would appear that Silver wasn’t, starting with the copious amounts of bandages wrapped around his limbs. “Silver, you look like you’re… rather injured.”

“But I don’t feel like I’m rather injured. Because of the Emerald,” the psychic pointed out most didactically.

“Oh jeez. Well, at least you’re patched up this time- Oh, and your tie looks very handsome! I told you one day you’d learn how to get it right.” Had the woman started with a wary shrug, her face did soften as her eyes fell on the strap of blue around Silver’s neck, and Sonic got shot a smile as well. “Eliza. And that over there is James, my little brother. James!!”

At the mention of his name, a man who made a very small dot in the distance of the warehouse turned around too- and similarly startled at Silver’s appearance, Sonic grimacing again at his visible jolt despite how far away he was. “I’m fine!” the psychic yelled before anyone could so much as say anything about it, though, and Sonic hid a concerned laugh in a cough at the worried look on James’ face as he came over as well.

“Er… Sure. I’m James,” got hummed, Sonic shot a nod. “I take it Silver has brought in an extra pair of hands today?”

“Sonic and I gotta collect rings so we can go to the Special Stage-” Silver began explaining, though altogether distracted for his usual behaviour as he peered to the side and his ears gave a flick. “Oh, yes, this is Sonic. He’s staying over at my place.”

“Sonic the Hedgehog. Nice to meetcha,” Sonic smiled at the two humans.

Who, like more people in the future, regarded him with most curious gazes most promptly. “Sonic… Like the Blue Wind, huh? That famous hero from centuries ago?” James spoke up first. “You do look a lot like the guy who’s got all the statues and stuff, and who’s in all the history books.”

“Sonic is that hero, and he’s my friend. And you guys apparently are also my friends! Did you know that?” Silver absentmindedly called out over his shoulder from where he’d wandered away to study a screen spanning a significant width of the warehouse’s wall.

Sonic had to stifle a laugh at the way James and Eliza regarded each other next, with raised eyebrows and twinkling eyes. “Of course we knew that, Skyfire,” the latter responded first, her brother shaking his head with a smile. “As for you, Sonic… If you are that hero, you’re pretty fast, huh?” That got accompanied by a wink Sonic’s way, that the speedster returned in stride, his own lips tugged up as well; poor Silver wasn’t believed yet again and mercifully didn’t seem to notice that either.

“Fastest thing alive, yep.”

“We can always use fast people here,” Eliza nodded-

And promptly both humans shot a worried look over their shoulders, in perfect sync.

Sonic reared up on his tiptoes to follow it, and saw quite a few tense faces on the people scattering about further into the warehouse. “Foreman Marco is displeased. Not that that’s unusual, but it makes for a miserable work experience,” James added, his eyes rolling; but Sonic also did not miss how his voice had dropped to the quietest of whispers. The exact kind of whisper used by people who knew the person they were talking smack about was lurking nearby, and could very well overhear and then promptly explode. “Something about how we’re all slackers, how the mail service is going down the drain, that we’ve got protocols for a reason and those need to be followed, what have you… At least he likes Silver. We think. Which is impressive, because he likes nobody else.”

Sonic hummed at that. “How come Silver’s special, then?”

Eliza snorted. “Look at him. He’s small and fluffy! We met him because he just wandered onto this terrain one day with zero regard that that’s forbidden, and Foreman Marco went off entirely and so did Silver, and he, like… apparently thought that Foreman Marco didn’t believe he could deliver all the mail easily, and then he just picked everything up and he did. And he did it so well that he got hired on the spot despite there being no positions open and stuff and him not having a residence anywhere and what-have-you. It’s apparently the first and only thing Foreman Marco’s ever done that goes against his holy protocol. But how could he not hire someone who can lift literally hundreds of heavy boxes and crates and containers with wares like they weigh nothing, just with his mind?” got explained at a rapid-fire speed and with the quietest of laughs. “But the fact he’s small and fluffy must have played a role too. We don’t get that. We’re broke college students.”

“I’m not a broke college student, but I’m also not fluffy and I can’t lift things with my mind. Your foreman’s gonna like me better than he likes you, but not as much as he likes Silver,” Sonic dramatically decreed, both humans laughing. Sonic chuckled as well, though he did flick an ear warily alongside it. If things were so strict here, then… “Very random question: what is the protocol on inviting friends to help you out with delivering mail?”

“Forbidden. Only certified mail deliverers allowed. We have a reputation on various fronts to upkeep here,” Eliza grinned his way wryly as her brother shrugged beside her.

“Meh, I’m sure it’s fine. Foreman Marco will come to love you if you’re as fast as you say and you deliver all this mail today.” And with that James’ voice rose again. “Hey, Silver! You’ll be showing your buddy the ropes, will ya?”

The hedgehog in question peered up from where he’d been… amassing what had to be hundreds of crates in neatly-stacked piles. Those towered over Sonic completely, blocking out the lights in the ceiling and casting shadows that reached all the way to the opposite end of the giant warehouse. Sonic promptly lowered his ears in trepid awe. “Is that all the stuff that has to be delivered?”

“It’s been a disaster with all the mail this whole day. Yesterday too,” Eliza spoke up lamentingly. “Tons of stuff has to go to the industry terrain for some reason and we’ve got no idea how to get it there in time.”

Silver for his part simply grinned. “You guys know I can do that easily! And I’ve got the fastest thing alive with me. Sonic, I can handle the crates and stuff; how about you do the paper mail? You gotta go in and out of a ton of buildings with that, but it’s a lot less to carry around. We’ll be able to work it out together.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Sonic chuckled back… before frowning. Silver was too, stacks of crates regarded more pensively.

Would the psychic be able to lift all that, considering he’d been hurt so much in that explosion? Sure, he’d slept and seemed energetic as usual, but…

But before Sonic could bring up those concerns in a roundabout way that wouldn’t freak out any friends of Silver about how Silver got blown up, the psychic had already jumped into action. In one fell swoop, cyan coated the crates, and all the stacks moved…!

“Silver,” Sonic breathed, rushing closer so he could murmur in the other’s ear. “You sure this is a good idea?”

Golden eyes regarded him curiously. “Yes? We need to get rings.”

“Not the job, but lifting so much. You sure you’re not too tired?”

“…Oh.” Silver blinked, and Sonic jolted as all the crates got plunked down again. “Sonic, look at my marks. They’re  bright as always, aren’t they?” the psychic added… and Sonic could have sworn that twitch of his nose was from amusement. “You really don’t need to be worried about me!”

Amusement… Two could play that game. With a wink Sonic curled his fingers around Silver’s hands lightly, angling the limb left and right and up and down as he inspected the mark all over. Meanwhile he swallowed down a chuckle at Silver fondly rolling his eyes, the psychic standing fussing and twitching as Sonic’s fingers trailed over his glove. “Well, let us seeeeeee… This does look to be glowing quite healthily… The other hand too… And the backs of them as well… Seems pretty firm and powerful, like they are part of the world’s most powerful psychic… Yes, I can give this my blessing,” the speedster blabbered on, before laughing in full as the world’s most powerful psychic prodded him psychokinetically in his ribs.

“That’s great, and we gotta start moving, because if we don’t, Foreman Marco is going to give us what for.”

“And that’d be bad,” Sonic chuckled. “You can lead the way?”

“I got a list of all the addresses we gotta go to. While I drop off the heavy stuff, you go in the streets and deliver the paper mail wherever. The numbers speak for themselves.”

And in one fell swoop, Silver threw the strap of his brown satchel over Sonic’s neck. “Let’s go!” the psychic smirked, the crates getting coated in cyan again as he raised up his hands and a large door psychokinetically rattling open in one wall, and slowly they all flew out of the warehouse.

“I’m right behind you. We’ll see you in a bit!” Sonic nodded, peeking over his shoulder to wave at Silver’s two friends.

It was the perfect moment to catch the most intrigued way they were looking at each other.

And thus, Sonic had blasted off after Silver into the city before any questions could be send his way.

He wouldn’t have an answer for them to begin with.

Chapter Text

“Whew! I think that’s the last of them,” Silver beamed, wiping his hand underneath his cap.

With a stretch of his back Sonic nodded. A morning of bringing around mail had been ample time to show just how stunningly massive Silver’s city was, even for hedgehogs as fast as the two of them. Silver had taken all his cargo along to the industry terrain, while Sonic had followed his directions to find all the addresses on his paper mail. And that had been many, the speedster swearing he’d gone through hundreds of streets to locate each. At least the buildings that stood on the ocean floor had their mail boxes all centrally placed in the entrance; the mere thought of how long it would have taken to go into each building and drop the mail off at every doorstep made Sonic playfully shiver.

But all in all, it’d been a handful of hours well-spent, and both hedgehogs had reconvened close to the mail warehouse… where Sonic produced a flustered noise as Silver stepped forward, leaned into him in the way their bodies basically just slammed together more than tenderly touched, and opened the brown satchel. “Hey, you delivered everything! But then again, you really are fast,” the psychic marvelled. “I couldn’t even see you around with how quick you were being!”

Sonic, rearing his head backwards as to not get any grey quills into his mouth, managed to get a laugh out at that statement. With the sudden warmth accompanied by the tickling of strands of white mane brushing over his fur, saying anything sensical was a bit hard. “Perks of reading fast and having fast hands that can put the mail in each mailbox very fastly,” Sonic’s sensical statement thus became, before the speedster had to genuinely laugh at himself, because what?

If Silver noticed, he didn’t show anything, and thus Sonic went ahead and presumed he didn’t. “I can move fast, but I can’t read fast,” the psychic nodded back with a most genuine pensiveness. “It’s really cool that you can!”

“Well…” Sonic hummed as a thought reared in his mind. He could only conclude Silver had yet to notice the slight heating of peach cheeks from his compliments and also from where the psychic was trying to tug his satchel over Sonic’s head now, which meant that alongside his mane the fabric of his jacket brushed against Sonic’s body also. But two could play the game of compliments packaged as teases and affection hidden in accidental touches, even if Silver probably wasn’t playing on purpose. “My fast reading and fast hands certainly are no match for carrying hundreds of crates all over the city to drop them off at industry terrains, so I think we’re even,” the speedster thus smirked, a finger giving a playful boop in the middle of one of Silver’s psychic marks. It earned him a squeak and a laugh, before a warm forehead butted against his cheek.

“Don’t be silly! Even if you can take just one crate at a time, if you move fast enough, you’ll get them all there in the same time I need. Right?”

“Lightspeed is peanuts, yep,” Sonic quipped back, moving his head down so Silver could successfully yank the strap of his satchel past blue quills. It was a bit difficult with Silver’s own head leaning against his, but it only made Sonic’s mood more cheerful. “One problem: I don’t think I can lift that crate and run with it. So you got me beat there.”

Had Silver peered at him most curiously for a moment, a snort followed next. “Heh. I suppose so. So we both have something we’re good at in the mail business,” the psychic concluded, ears giving a happy wriggle.

Sonic similarly stood… a bit oddly. A bit lightly and airy, like everything was very right in the world indeed. “Which means we completed our mission with a grandiose success!” the speedster settled on. “Will Foreman Marco be pleased?”

The happy wriggle of Silver’s ears dissipated entirely as they drooped forward instead.

“…Probably not. He never is,” the sighed-out response came. “That is to say… He yells a lot, but he does care. Is what James and Eliza say, when they’re not complaining about him. Apparently he’s allergic to broke college students taking gap years to build up funds, or something like that. I didn’t really understand what Eliza was getting at.”

Sonic stifled a laugh. “Oh dear. Guess we gotta get all that mail back so you can deliver it on your own properly, right?”

A grey eyebrow raised. “We just determined you’re better at paper mail than I am, though,” Silver hummed back, a bit uncertainly. “And that’s gonna take hours on top. So that seems pretty pointless.”

“Just joking,” Sonic chuckled, knocking a playful elbow against his pal. Silver peered at it for a few seconds, enough for Sonic to cheer inwardly about the fact Silver really did seem like he wasn’t so willing anymore to go and bite Sonic for infringements on his personal space… before blue-wrapped shoulders shrugged.

“Sure. Let’s go back there and tell Foreman Marco we got you to help out for today. That’s how I ended up joining too, so I’m sure it’s fine!”

That sounded plenty optimistic, and thus Sonic beamed at Silver before the two of them darted back to the mail warehouse.

Where Sonic conceded that things probably weren’t as fine as Silver thought, because a stout man with an impressively red face who stood right beside the door opened his mouth and began roaring at them the moment the two hedgehogs entered.

“Silver! You’re just bringin’ in randos to deliver mail?!” he boomed, an accusatory finger jabbed in Sonic’s direction. “First you, now him! We have protocols here!”

Oh yikes, Sonic winced. That could only be one person. Behind Foreman Marco, James and Eliza stood cowering in a nearby corner of the warehouse; Sonic would have laughed at the discrepancy of Eliza standing bravely in front of her far taller brother if both didn’t look genuinely scared. They were also the only staff still present: the rest of the warehouse had become suspiciously quiet and abandoned compared to the bustling-though-tense atmosphere from before.

If Silver noticed that, he didn’t act like it, though. Instead every single quill and strand of hair on his body puffed up, while grey ears pressed against his head indignantly. “What does it matter? Sonic wanted to help because we need rings, and he did great!” got spat right back similarly heatedly. Sonic’s spines prickled with the sensation of things being about to go sideways in the most swift of manners.

“You cannot just invite some random kid to come help you!” With bombastic movements Foreman Marco dug through his pocket, pulling out a little book that fell open in a way like it got pulled out and opened this aggressively a lot. That accusatory finger jammed onto a page next, which crinkled with a sad noise. “The protocol is clear: certified mail deliverers only! We have a reputation to upkeep here!”

“Random kid?! This is Sonic. He’s not random at all!” was the one thing Silver filtered out from those statements, and Sonic swallowed as the first tell-tale signs of Silver becoming very angry began to show. Bared teeth, balled fists, golden eyes leering with that fire while cyan sparks slowly began glowing around him… “Sonic the hero from the past, in fact!”

Silver’s boss was clearly not one for jokes and shenanigans, because the man’s face turned even more red in a second. “You’re havin’ a hero help you with the mail?!” he shot back at a volume that made Sonic’s ears hurt, Foreman Marco’s arms crossing into a stance of might, and Silver opened his mouth anew as a deep growl reverberated in the air…!

That cut out into nothing as Sonic reached beside him and grasped Silver’s shoulder gently. It made the psychic jolt, his head snapping sideways and eyes glaring a hole into Sonic next with that venom that could burn right through metal-

…Before that lightened, into something more warily inquiring as Silver’s head tipped to the side.

“It’s okay. I got this,” Sonic whispered to him, accompanied by a light squeeze of his hand. “Foreman, Silver is also a hero and you hired him as well after he delivered a bunch of mail, even though there were no official positions open,” he spoke up at full volume, shooting Foreman Marco a placating smile. “And he’s right: we do need rings, right now. We figured this was the easiest way to get them, while helping the city on top. I might not be a certified mail deliverer, but I did great work, Silver says.”

“We, uh, thought it would be fine. Since it was only for today,” Eliza piped up in a voice so tiny that it was barely audible. “And, well, they did deliver… everything in this quadrant?”

“Everything in this quadrant,” Foreman Marco mocked, turning around…

To the empty wall that no more boxes stood in front of and where all the paper mail had been taken as well.

“…Huh,” Foreman Marco broke the awkward silence that had fallen. “You did not take everything here.”

“Of course we did! Silver is the world’s most powerful psychic. You think all those boxes cause any trouble for him?” Sonic jumped right in with his grin growing more assured. His heart fluttered at the way Silver’s eyes widened minutely whenever he said that compliment, before a look of tender fondness blossomed on the other’s face…

“And Sonic is the fastest thing alive. He went to every single building in the Ocean District and out again in seconds!” the psychic added, mercifully a lot less yell-y himself. “And he really did do great work. And isn’t it good for the post office that the hero from the past is helping out?”  

Foreman Marco whipped around anew, glaring the two of them down while Eliza and James stood fidgeting in the shadows. Sonic wondered whether it was best to act entirely confident about Silver’s statements or like his pal was just off his rocker, decided that neither would work out for various reasons, and settled on a nod. “The past. What nonsense,” Foreman Marco grumbled under his breath, though there was something uncertain in his eyes as he looked Sonic all over…

Before he spat out a harrumph, with hands bombastically thrown skywards. “We are not making this a habit! There’s protocols to follow and they do not include taking randos with you to help out!” the command got shot out with the force of a bomb, Sonic’s body reeling backwards by instinct while Silver jumped in his grasp. Larger than life Foreman Marco turned around, marched off with reverberating footsteps, and flung open the door of a nearby room that all but trembled as he entered. Some rummaging and cursing resounded inside next, before the man returned with in his hands a brown satchel that clinked with the characteristic sound of rings.

And Sonic was altogether certain his gaze softened, ever so slightly, when Silver got handed their payment.

Silver’s eyes, however, widened in alarm the moment the satchel got dropped into his hands. “Hey!” the psychic protested, tearing the bag open and altogether jumping a second time as he peered inside. “This is far too much!!”

“Labour of two, pay for two,” Foreman Marco huffed back… and immediately, Silver tensed only more.

“That’s not true! If I’d been alone, I’d have done all the work Sonic did as well!”

“It’d have taken longer.”

“Not that much longer!” Silver protested indignantly, while Sonic did his best to stifle a laugh. Foreman Marco however just scoffed and turned around again, marching back to the other room anew. “Wait! This isn’t right!” Silver cried out after him-

And Sonic yelped as the psychic cut into movement too, tearing himself away from Sonic’s hand that the speedster only then realised he’d yet to pull back, and raced after his boss. “Foreman! Take it back!!”

The door to the room fell shut in his face.

Silver fizzled out of existence with a jolt of cyan.

And Sonic jumped a foot in the air as, in that room, both started positively screaming at each other.

“Dude,” slipped past his lips without thinking at the dual yelling, that ricocheted around the warehouse as loudly as if the duo had been standing in its main part still. Silver roared about the amount of money, Foreman Marco roared for him to scram and get lost… Before Sonic could stop it, he laughed helplessly.

Huddled near the wall still, Eliza must have said something because her lips moved, though Sonic couldn’t pick out her words over the clamouring at all. “What?!” the speedster inquired with a raised voice of his own as he zipped over, both humans groaning in sync.

“I said: ‘Oh gods, not this again’,” Eliza clarified with a grumble, arms crossing as she leaned into her brother.

“This might end badly,” James dryly piped up. “Legend has it that Foreman Marco once got into an argument with some sap that worked here as well, and he eventually was so done he just grabbed that person by the blouse and flung them right out of his office. I’ve always wanted to ask what the protocol about such a situation is, but… you know.”

“Best not to risk it,” Sonic snorted.

“Exactly. Thanks for trying to keep Silver quiet, by the way. That one time those two got into an argument in the main hall was… rather… a problem,” Eliza mumbled with a wince, Sonic rearing up on his tiptoes so he could hear her still. “Good grief, everyone went home with blown-out eardrums that day.”

“Was that the one where Silver thought your foreman doubted he could deliver all the mail?”

“Quite so.”

Sonic, who did his very best to keep a straight face amidst the various variants of “GET OUT OF MY OFFICE” and “YOU GAVE US TOO MUCH MONEY” that were audible most easily through the closed door of said office, nodded sagely. “Silver’s pretty competitive.”

Both siblings muttered some things at that that Sonic couldn’t make out, which the speedster figured was perhaps for the better considering their salty tones, though a few moments later he got regarded with that strange intrigue again. The exact intrigue by which both had regarded each other while Sonic and Silver had set off with their mail, some hours before. “Say, how did you and Silver meet, actually? I’ve never seen you around these parts before,” Eliza piped up, as Sonic shrugged and thought out his words in a split second. People didn’t seem to believe Silver’s time-travel adventures were real, so…

“He ran up to me and started yelling,” the speedster very honestly non-answered.

“…Don’t know what I expected,” Eliza hummed back. “But hey! He seems pretty fond of you now.”

Sonic’s hand drifted up to where Silver had brushed past his stomach, when trying to get back his satchel. And then up to his cheek, which the other’s forehead had butted against so tenderly. “I think so too,” the speedster settled on, and mercifully any statements on that matter from Eliza and James, who both looked very smug all of a sudden, got interrupted by the door to Foreman Marco’s office flinging open again.

Sonic shot around to intercept Silver getting flung out right by his scruff, before he could hit the ground.

“AND STAY OUT!” Foreman Marco boomed as he marched out as well, slammed the door shut, and stormed into the rest of the warehouse with yells galore following about how all the slackers present had to go back to work this instant lest their pay would be docked, accompanied by thundering footsteps and the angriest of gestures.

It was an interesting sight to half-see through Silver’s quills blocking Sonic’s vision from where both of them laid sprawled out on the ground.

“…Ouch,” the psychic piped up first, from where his head laid crammed underneath Sonic’s chin.

In a bout of forethought Sonic firmly wrapped his arms around Silver’s thin body before his pal could jump up and continue his ranting. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?” the speedster inquired, pushing himself upright a bit. If Foreman Marco could snatch Silver by the neck to hurl him about, then-!

In his arms, Silver immediately stiffened… before taking to wriggling like mad. “No!” the protest came. “We got too much money!!”

“Imagine complaining about getting too much money,” James muttered somewhere behind Sonic, Eliza shushing him with a laugh, and Sonic gladly grabbed Silver’s attention as his pal stopped his fussing to sent a deadly leer in their direction.

“Silver, leave it be,” the speedster implored, his one arm pressing down more strongly on Silver’s back so the other could move and let him press a hand against a tan cheek. Immediately golden eyes widened, Silver staring at Sonic next as the latter smiled. “Foreman Marco is trying to help us out. Isn’t it really kind of him that he’s doing that?”

“…He is?”

“Absolutely! Remember, I’m not an official worker: he’s got no reason to pay me as well, but he did.” Fondly Sonic ran his thumb past Silver’s skin, before deciding that perhaps that was an awkward spot to put his pal in considering his two rather nosy friends in the vicinity, and dropping his hand again.

Silver’s gaze followed it move down, as a deep sigh made his body press into Sonic’s even more than before. “But it’s not right. I would have done all the stuff you did myself if you hadn’t been here! And sure, it’d have taken longer, but not by much at all. Paying you a full wage as well isn’t… You know! If they did that for everyone, how will the mail service ever play break-even?!”

“I don’t think there are a lot of everyones that are helping out the way I did,” Sonic piped up; that seemed like a safe bet to make, considering how Foreman Marco could still be heard in the distance. “That is to say, things seem pretty official here regarding employment, so I don’t think you have to be worried about that. Foreman Marco wouldn’t have given us two wages if it didn’t fit in the budget somehow.”

Some grumbles followed against him. “I guess, but…!”

Patiently Sonic waited. He’d managed to tackle Silver’s concerns and genuine but overblown worries before as well, by just talking about it-

Though this time it didn’t seem needed, because Silver sighed once more before his face hardened and he reared up in Sonic’s grasp. “Okay, fine. Thanks for the extra rings!” the psychic cried out, straining up in Sonic’s embrace to absolutely shriek into the rest of the warehouse, where Foreman Marco yelled something incomprehensible back, and Sonic could once again only laugh at it.

With gentle fingers moving Silver’s head around to check for any injuries caused by smashing face-first into speedy blue hedgehogs Sonic pulled the both of them upright eventually. “There we go,” he noted, cheeks hurting as he tried to hold in a smile. Silver’s appearance had become altogether ragged from getting flung so suddenly… With an unthinking motion, Sonic ran a hand past grey quills. It did little to make them bristle less, but they at least looked better this way, and the speedster nodded contently before shooting Eliza and James a wink. “Well! That was that, then. Sorry for causing problems with your boss.”

…Both humans jolted up from where they’d been staring, wide-eyed and baffled, at Sonic’s hand.

“Oh! Yes- Er, no, it’s really no issue,” the latter spoke up first, with an awkward clearing of his throat. “Every workday is like this. You get used to it.”

“Yeah. Except for some… differences here and there,” Eliza added next, and Sonic would almost start feeling uncomfortable by the way both of Silver’s friends regarded him.

Silver for his part just scoffed, quills becoming right as bristly once more. “Next time he tries to throw me out, I’m putting him on the moon too,” got muttered under his breath, and Sonic gladly used his anger to change the topic away from the fact the speedster had, absolutely and undeniably, just given Silver a caress over his head in full view and hadn’t gotten put on the moon for it.

“Naw, you wouldn’t. He can’t pay you at all then. And speaking of, mission completed!” that topic became, Sonic shooting his pal a smile. “High five?”

“Oh, yes.” Grey-furred ears perked up as Sonic lifted his hand, and Silver’s expression softened away from his murderous glaring. “Look! We’ve been practicing,” Eliza and James got informed with an infinite smugness as the psychic raised a hand as well, and it slapped against Sonic’s palm with a perfect little smack.

With how tremendously content Silver looked about this, Sonic grinned right along as Eliza clapped politely and James whooped. “Heck yeah, awesome!”

“Sonic taught me how to do that,” Silver chattered further… which was great and all because he did become more happy-looking by the second, but Sonic had wanted to draw attention away from himself. And was doing a very poor job at that, since that intrigue flared up once again in both siblings’ eyes.

“Now that we got the rings, we can go look for the Special Stage,” the speedster made a second attempt, gesturing vaguely to create a sense of inclusion that would hopefully sweep James and Eliza right up. “We’re looking for a Chaos Emerald.”

“Hmm… That’s those big gemstones that can create miracles, right? Exactly something that Silver would be looking for, heh.”

Easily Sonic clocked that Eliza was smiling in the way she was because she didn’t actually believe Chaos Emeralds could create miracles: it was far too easy to tell by the amused expression that creased around her eyes and lips.

…Silver, meanwhile, didn’t seem to pick up on that in the slightest once again. “Sonic needs them to get home-” the psychic nodded back with his infinite seriousness, before cutting himself off with a little jolt. “Oh, speaking of home, is there any mail for me?”

Before anyone could answer that, Silver had already dived towards another door, foregoing tearing it open by teleporting again and returning two seconds later with empty hands. “Seems like nothing,” Sonic continued his attempts at creating a distraction.

“Nope, but I always check,” Silver responded, grey quills swaying gracefully in the air as he shook his head. “Foreman Marco got my hideout an actual address for the mail, but I just take it home from here by myself. It’s too far for other deliverers to travel in a workday, and I don’t get much mail to begin with.”

“You never get mail because you live in the middle of nowhere,” Eliza piped up, skittling closer with a wary look sent over her shoulder. But apparently Foreman Marco was far away enough – not that Sonic could tell, because he was endlessly hollering still – for it to be safe to talk normally, the woman humming. “You two are gonna return to that forest after this? Good luck.”

Sonic’s spines took to tingling once again as the air around them seemed to change.

It started with Silver, who pulled a miffed face. “I told you I don’t just sleep on the ground under a bush somewhere.”

“You did, but still. It just seems… uncomfortable. The weather… Bugs…”

“Always a big trip to go to… er, civilisation,” James added. A pleading glance from two sets of brown eyes got sent to Sonic next, the speedster raising an eyebrow in turn. There was something deeper going on here, he could sense it…

“Silver’s hideout is really neat,” he spoke his honest thoughts on the matter. “It’s got a cosy hammock and plants and such. It’s been nice to stay there.”

“Thank you. My hideout is fine,” the hedgehog in question huffed, turning to Sonic as well as a disregarding shrug followed. “Eliza and James are worried that I’m withering away because I don’t have a house and I sleep outside. But I don’t need a house. My place got everything I could ask for.”

“There is a difference between needing something and wanting something. For example, I want to have any other job than this wretched nonsense with the most volatile creepy old guy breathing over my shoulder, but I need the money,” Eliza responded. “You know, sometimes you can want more than the bare minimum. Nothing shameful about that.”  

“I also told you it’s just too dangerous.”

“Sweet Skyfire, you keep saying that again and again, but what is dangerous? There isn’t anything threatening us-”

Sonic could see the minute way Silver’s eyes widened, before his lips curled up to unveil teeth bared in a snarl.

“There could be!” his friend spat back, and Sonic jumped at the sudden rise in volume. Silver’s hands balled into fists, golden eyes narrowing and the first sparks of cyan flaring up around him again… “And I don’t want to draw my nemesis to the city and risk him destroying everything just to get me!”

Sonic’s eyes drifted between the other three people. Silver stood bristling and snarling lowly while Eliza similarly glared at him and James stood awkwardly fidgeting, though both humans carried deep frowns of concern creasing their foreheads. “I thought he’d been left in the Ifrit’s dimension,” the speedster interrupted before Silver would go and fight multiple friends of his.

With a little jolt the psychic turned around, Sonic stared at for a second. “Er… Well, yeah. That’s true,” got nodded back slowly. “And hopefully he’s dead. But if he’s not, and if he comes back here, then-!”

“Then nothing is stopping him from nuking the city anyway, Silver. Whether you live in it or on its borders,” Sonic pointed out.

…Silver flinched.

A silence fell. Silver stood with hunched shoulders and face twisting with fright… for just a moment, before that sunk into rage once more. “He wants me! More than he wants to hurt anybody else!” the psychic spat back, teeth baring at Sonic now. “If I’m not in the city, he might not…!”

“But you hang out in this place a lot anyway, because you love it here,” Sonic murmured back, deciding against reaching out and stroking down those raised quills bristling his way. He’d better not push his luck. But he knew his words to be true: Silver loved the library and his job and the people of the city and every little street and corner and underwater pipe, because why else would he know so much about everything?

Silver’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. Also James and Eliza remained quiet, the duo standing fidgeting and fussing with sleeves and buttons. Though, James cleared his throat first, stepping forward a bit. “If I may… Eliza and I aren’t from Soleanna, but things here and in our hometown have been fine for years. Yes, Doctor Robotnik has caused some troubles here and there, and you gotta be careful when traversing non-urbanised Zones because of robots and abandoned bases from that Eggman guy and such, and there’s the occasional robot attack in this place too. But we’ve got a guard for that, and…” he murmured, before a helpless shrug followed. “There just hasn’t been any large-scale calamities in centuries. You know, things like the Blue Wind fought when he was alive. Nowhere on the entire planet.”

“That’s true,” Eliza breathed. “And Silver’s always right on the case of solving things that do pop up, so-”

“I’m fine with how things are,” Silver interrupted with such a low-pitched snarl even Sonic felt spooked.

Whatever Eliza had wanted to say next, it stopped her dead in her tracks. Also James froze, and Sonic himself had no idea what to say either. Both humans shot a look at each other eventually, before Eliza minutely shook her head and James shrugged. “Well… You know best, buddy.”

“Yeah. We don’t want to intrude or anything,” his sister added, before jolting upright in a way Sonic could only describe as fully manufactured. The tenseness between them remained even after she, equally manufacturedly, remembered that she had some slices of a home-baked banana bread that she and James had gotten quite tired of with her, to which Silver responded by immediately pulling out all the vegetables and fruits from his garden in turn, and Sonic hummed noncommittally as something that more resembled a whole banana bread than a part got pushed in the psychic’s hands amidst Eliza trying to balance a good kilo of homegrown plants in her arms. “It’s got pecans and walnuts and it’s whole-wheat,” she concluded, peering over the pile. “Also a bit burnt here and there, since I’m no good at baking. Sorry about that.”

“You’re doing your best,” James responded with a placating fake smile. “We’ll see the two of you around.”

“Yeah,” Silver muttered, waving half-heartedly before turning around and marching to the door to outside that got psychokinetically flung open with a deafening crash, and Sonic swallowed at the look of rage that burned on his face still.

Because underneath that, in the most hidden and closed-off crevices of Silver’s being, Sonic could have sworn that Silver looked altogether rattled.

Sonic didn’t even bother to look at how James and Eliza all but dove towards each other and set up a poorly-muffled whispering campaign two seconds before the speedster pulled the door to the warehouse shut; right now, he had to be there for Silver.

Chapter Text

Rage burned through his veins, his powers, his very soul as Silver marched into the city, and realised three streets away from the mail warehouse that he actually had no idea where he was going.

With a flame of anger gnawing and clawing at his worries the psychic cut to a halt. How dared James and Eliza make fun of his hideout like that?! He wasn’t withering away there! He had everything perfectly under control with his watertight bags and his tarp and his plants! And if the campfire got wet he just wouldn’t cook for a bit, and if his hammock got wet he’d just sleep on it anyway or put down a towel, and if it was too cold he’d just go to the library! He had everything covered! And moving into the city to an apartment of his own would be the stupidest thing he could ever do, because Eggman Nega would come back and would just go and carpetbomb Silver, and the only way Silver could avoid everyone suffering was if he was as far away from the city as possible!

The bandages clung against his limbs as tightly as the hoodie had.

With a growl Silver shot into the air and made manic sparks of cyan tear at them until they’d fallen away in full and his fur didn’t crawl underneath them anymore. That was nothing that living anywhere else than his hideout would fix, he settled on with a smug nod. The only thing having an apartment would result in was having neighbours who could help and being closer to the hospital, and it wasn’t like he needed either.

Even if a sense of dread doused his flame of anger quite successfully.

Both flickered into troubled uncertainty as Sonic stepped closer.

“Hey,” the speedster murmured, halting a foot or so beside Silver’s floating form. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Silver shot back through gritted teeth.

And yet, even the psychic knew Sonic would never believe that. But he cared not to insist more on just how okay he was and draw out the conversation longer. Instead Silver floated back to the ground and took to marching anew, uncaring for whereto and only wanting it to be somewhere that would make all his thinking just stop.

As he should have seen coming, the city made his thinking only worse.

With mad growls reverberating in his increasingly-heavy chest Silver walked and walked, until he couldn’t walk any further because it’d send him cascading right into the ocean, and if there was anything that would make him explode should he touch it, it would be that. Thus, Silver settled on smashing his powers onto the water with a downward slam of a fist. Which just meant he got promptly sprayed with salty droplets galore.

The only reason why Silver didn’t just start roaring and send his powers out in a city-toppling explosion was because a hand curled over his shoulder, and it was warm and careful and soft and gentle and made the psychic freeze right in his tracks.

“It’s okay,” Sonic murmured. “Let’s sit down.”

“I don’t want to sit down,” Silver growled back at him. But somehow, he couldn’t find it in himself to resist as he got guided to the metal stairs that lined the edge of the beach. Would he have flailed or protested if it had been anybody else, Sonic’s hand laid on his shoulder like it had been stuck with a glue Silver could never want to try and peel away. And his chest was heavy, so heavy; it was like a rock that left him unable to move, even if Sonic could push at it with ease.

With a hiss the psychic averted his eyes to stare at the afternoon sun that had just made her way past her highest point in spring and had begun sinking down towards the skyscrapers again. Sonic meanwhile trudged right on until he’d sunken down on the stairs, and before he realised Silver had crashed into sitting as well. “I don’t want to talk,” he spat next, that sheer rage inside him making him see red.

A minute jolt passed through Sonic.

The psychic could feel from where their sides brushed together just barely. And… And something bad stirred in Silver at it. Something that made him glare daggers at a tree beside Sonic that also wasn’t really at fault for Silver’s feelings, but regarding it like it was… didn’t do much to make Silver feel better, actually.

Nor did the knowledge for what would happen now cheer him up, for this was always the part where people insisted he did have to talk.

Sonic however smiled lightly and said: “Okay.”

“…Okay?!”

Silver’s head snapped right back, rage and seeing red and the cyan itching at the edges of his marks immediately forgotten as he just stared. “Yeah,” Sonic responded with a little chuckle. “You don’t want to talk about it, right?”

“You’re not gonna-?!”

“That’d be mean,” got said back in that fond way, with that sparkle in green eyes, and Silver almost staggered at the wave of sheer guilt that roared up in him next and almost struck him right to the ground.

“…I’m sorry.” With a swallow Silver tried to push down the heavy clump forming in the back of his throat. “I’m not being nice.”

“I understand. It’s hard to be nice when you’re hurt, or stressed.”

Sonic’s words made Silver shrug half-heartedly. “I just don’t want them to be right,” he mumbled, more to the stairs and the sand and the sky and even that dumb tree than to Sonic. “Also other people. Or you. About my place. I need you guys to be wrong.”

Because if they weren’t, and if what Sonic had said had been right after all, it didn’t matter where Silver lived. Eggman Nega would just destroy everything anyway.

Silver’s chest convulsed at the mere thought.

He couldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t let that happen. He’d find some way to defy his nemesis like always, no matter what it took. He’d lie and said he didn’t care for the city to begin with, perhaps, and if he thought it often enough beforehand it’d have become true. Or he’d never go in the city again, and then he didn’t have to lie at all and could tell Eggman Nega that he hadn’t been there for ages and thus it was obvious that it didn’t matter much to him. Or he could move away from his hideout in full, so he would never get tempted to go back to the people who apparently were his friends, and even if it'd hurt to leave his place and them behind, it’d be the best choice for everyone-

“Hey, Silver. Breathe,” resounded at the very edge of Silver’s perception.

The psychic flinched. His chest hurt, and hurt only more as he drew a rasping breath. But it did make the static and stars in his vision dissipate somewhat, and diminish the ringing in his ears that Silver noticed only then. The next thing he noticed was Sonic’s hand moving closer, clasping his own. “Focus on me,” got murmured. “Breathe like me, okay?”

Silver tried to croak out an affirmation, but his mouth had dried out entirely. At least he could move enough still to huddle into Sonic’s arm more, until eventually he was close enough to make out every individual hair on the other’s body. Sonic’s pelt was spiky in the back around his quills, but sleek and soft where peach fuzz formed that circle on his stomach. His side was coated in longer fur, just like Silver’s was, and the psychic absentmindedly ran his fingers over it. Again and again he trailed them down, each blue strand moved past his glove until Silver’s world had become only that, and he could breathe again.

“I’m okay,” the psychic mumbled, blinking and sucking in some air through his nose more calmly. Sonic breathed very calmly as well, with long pauses, and the more Silver copied it the less his heart raced. It made it easier to pay attention to how warm Sonic’s arm was, and the skin underneath his pelt. “Sorry, I…”

That hand holding his gave a gentle squeeze. “I’m here to listen.”

Silver opened his mouth… and something snapped inside him. “What is there to say? The world must be kept safe. That’s the most important thing. Nobody can be happy if the world is destroyed!” rolled past his lips before he could stop it. “And the world can be kept safe by only me. Or the city. Protecting the city. Only I can do that! I need to make sure everyone’s protected. That that man can’t hurt anybody but me. It doesn’t matter if it’s just me; I’ll be okay. And I told you he’ll raze down wherever I am to the ground the moment he breaks free, so only I can- Eep!!”

A flinch jumped past Silver’s whole body as a very incorrigible finger skittered over his shoulder.

 “Careful,” Sonic winked as he ran his hand from Silver’s neck all the way to his shoulder’s edge, before the movement got repeated on the other side. “These are gonna completely crumble with all that weight put on them.”

…Silver couldn’t narrow his eyes as irately as he wanted.

“Sonic! This isn’t the time for jokes!” he thus settled on instead, doing his best to bristle and chase Sonic out of his personal space that way. Nobody liked petting angry hedgehogs; this would get Sonic to see that his goofiness wasn’t appreciated for sure.

Except Sonic didn’t smile. Or wink. Or tease. Or show in any way that he was merely being silly.

“Perhaps I’m not joking,” the calm response came instead.

“…Oh.” With a huff Silver crossed his arms, as much as he could from where he and Sonic sat so close together still. Sonic had an interesting definition of not joking, then, even if his demeanour didn’t look jokey in the slightest indeed. Warily the psychic studied him some more; how he sat tall and steady, green eyes definitely worried yet with something calm and certain in his expression, too. How Sonic could be calm and certain despite the fact the city was irrevocably, entirely screwed if he was right, Silver did not know, though. “How can you be so…?” he tried to speak up, and yet he couldn’t finish his sentence.

Sonic’s hand squeezed anew. “Because it’s not only you, Silver. You’re not alone.”

…That was true, the psychic had to admit with a grumble. Sonic was his friend, and he had more friends as well. And weren’t friends there for each other no matter what, or something? There was only the matter that Silver didn’t want anyone to help him keep the world safe, because that just meant there was somebody who could get hurt or die doing Silver’s duty for him…

But somehow, the psychic got the feeling Sonic would disagree with that notion heavily.

“I’m cold,” Silver decided to say, because it’d keep the conversation away from those thoughts and he did feel all trembly and chilly. “You’re really warm.”

Sonic wordlessly lifted up his elbow.

With a mumble of thanks Silver sunk against him in full, half-turning around so his chest and stomach would press against Sonic most. That meant he could rest his chin on the speedster’s shoulder too, and Silver scooted closer and closer while Sonic’s arm dropped down to press against his back. With some more fussing Silver lifted up a hand to lay on Sonic’s belly, and there was something strangely familiar about this, even if he couldn’t place what it was exactly…

“I’m sorry,” Sonic broke the silence that had fallen between them.

Silver half-heartedly shrugged, immediately tensing again. “‘Bout what?”

“That there’s nothing you can do here that’ll ensure with a full, one hundred percent guarantee that nothing goes wrong and the world is kept safe forever. But that is because things going wrong – that is, the specific thing you’re worried about – isn’t in your hands in the first place.”

With half a mind wondering whether it was normal to be overtaken with such a sense of helpless rage at a statement like that, Silver bared his teeth. “Of course it is! I’ll fight that man, and I’ll win! Again and again! No matter what it takes!”

“You got any influence over whether your archnemesis will come back?”

“…Probably not,” Silver found himself forced to concede.

“Will he come back?”

“I mean, I hope not. But never say never.”

“And that’s the whole problem, isn’t it?” With green eyes turned skywards Sonic hummed slowly, Silver rising and falling with the movement of his chest. “Let me ask you something,” came next, Silver bracing himself before he could help it. “If you knew for sure, one hundred percent certainly, that that nemesis of yours would never come back, would you want to live in the city?”

Silver opened his mouth, realised that he couldn’t think of any reasons why living in the city would be entirely undesirable, shut it again, realised next that he did like living outside, and took it to that angle. “My hideout is neat,” he thus mumbled… but Sonic shot him a smile and a flick of an ear, the psychic huffing out an unwilling sigh of relenting. “Yes, yes, I know. Not when it’s cold or rainy. So I guess it’d be nice, but… That doesn’t matter, because that’s not the situation we’re in!”

“But you don’t know what situation we are in right now.”

With a huff Silver butted his forehead against Sonic’s cheek. “Stop being cryptic. I don’t follow.”

Sonic’s eyes twinkled again, that hand that had found itself curled around Silver’s side giving the psychic a jostle. “Heh. Let’s put it like this: it’s uncertain whether your nemesis will return. That’s the problem with the future: everything is uncertain, and you only know for certain what will happen after it has. But that uncertainty, that… inability to be sure about what’s going to happen, leads to anxieties for many people, because they fear it’ll turn out bad. And then they spend a ton of time fearing all the ways it could be bad, and then it becomes this big monster in your head that’s all based on something that hasn’t happened yet and of which you thus can’t know at all whether it’ll be true. Right?”

“Yeah, but… You can make assumptions. I know that that man will try to kill me if he comes back.”

“If,” Sonic responded, and the word cut through Silver like a knife.

That warm elbow laying against his back pressed down more tightly, for just a moment. “And that’s the problem. That if. You can’t know for certain if he comes back. And the thing is… Why would you bunker yourself down in a place that’s not the best for you, because of that if? Why don’t you do something that’d make you happier? You can’t know what will happen anyway. Might as well live up to it happily.”

Silver flinched so badly it made the stairs creak.

He remained quiet for a long time after. His tongue refused to form words even as Sonic’s nose twitched and a soft inquiry for the banana bread followed, and the speedster tore off two giant chunks of the loaf and gave Silver the bigger one. Silver nibbled at it unwillingly, until pleading green eyes made him sigh and take a bigger bite and crunch grumpily on a pecan. And that was how they sat, only the sounds of the waves and the occasional distant cry of a seagull giving sound to the quiet between them as the sun dropped down ever so slowly.

“Stop talking,” was the first thing Silver could force out of his mouth, when the banana bread chunk had greatly diminished in size despite his unwilling bites, and he puffed up his fur up as miffed as he could yet found himself forced to concede that actually wasn’t a lot. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore!”

Sonic started laughing.

“I’ll be sure to talk even less in my next thirty minutes of uninterrupted silence,” got chuckled Silver’s way, in that way that was just so Sonic.

Promptly the psychic huffed in turn, leaning closer to butt his head against his friend anew and see if it could be the start of another thirty minutes of uninterrupted silence. It earned him a squeak and another laugh, Sonic rearing backwards-

Which flowed into more of a yelp as he swayed sideways and almost toppled down a step on the stairs.

“Careful!” Silver gasped, psychokinesis enshrouding the speedster immediately and putting him firmly back in place. Silver’s hand shot forward to grab at Sonic anew as well, tautly holding him down in his place. Having Sonic get himself hurt would cause so much trouble when it came to hunting down the second Emerald-

And it’d make Silver feel bad.

Awful, perhaps.

“Not made of sugar,” Sonic’s chuckle interrupted the drooping of Silver’s quills at the mere thought of the speedster suffering an injury. But beside him Sonic sat lively as always, the psychic did his best to encourage himself…

And, oddly enough, looking altogether mischievous with slightly-widened eyes and ears that had perked right up.  

A mischievousness which remained as Sonic reached out and grabbed Silver’s unoccupied hand, the remnants of Silver’s banana bread chunk carefully taken out of his grasp and dropped in the canister anew-

And then Silver yelled as Sonic hunched down, grinned his way, and jumped right at him.

“Hey!!” the psychic cried out as he tumbled down the stairs now, limbs and quills flaying like mad as he crashed onto the ground. With a wheeze he tried to scramble around, his belly exposed right upwards-! …And Sonic jumped on top of it, definitely not as rough as Silver would have expected but still with a force that forced the air to be heaved out of his lungs. By instinct the psychic kicked at Sonic, who gracefully moved out of the blow's way and dared swat a hand back at Silver, who retaliated in kind, and so they spent minutes in the sand: Sonic laughing, Silver not at all understanding what the heck the speedster was doing, and dust flying all around them as they…

Wrestled, or something?

Eventually Silver rammed his head upwards without thinking. Sonic, who’d put himself in the unfortunate position of ‘right in Silver’s trajectory’, heaved out a grunt as Silver’s forehead struck his ribcage. But that meant Silver could scramble up in full and throw his weight on the other in turn, baring his teeth. “What are you doing?!”

“Playing,” the innocent response came.

An indignant sputter slipped past Silver’s lips at that one word. “Excuse me?! I don’t play.”

“I can tell. Ouch,” Sonic grinned still, rubbing a hand over his ribs. “And that’s also a lie. We played just now.”

“We didn’t. Playing is for babies. No idea what the heck you were trying to do there,” Silver huffed back, dropping his chest on top of Sonic’s to stop any funny ideas from taking shape.

…The motion made him realise his own felt, oddly enough, quite a bit lighter.

An uncertain frown formed on Silver’s face. “Huh,” he piped up, staring at his mane. “…I feel weird.”

The way Sonic smirked underneath him could be the dictionary picture beside the word ‘incorrigible’. “Like all that weight has lifted off your shoulders? Just a bit?” got inquired.

…Was Sonic psychic too or something, the thought crossed Silver’s mind as he stared. “How do you know that?!”

“That’s what being silly does to you,” got responded with an infinite smugness, and yet Sonic’s eyes twinkled with that fondness Silver could see in them so very often. “You feel bad? Worried, stressed, angry? Move. It helps a ton.”

“…Hmpf,” Silver muttered back, quite displeased to find that, also this time, Sonic had entirely spoken the truth. With a leer he regarded that finger coming closer and running over his shoulders again, that did feel less tense…

And he was hedgehog enough to acknowledge that, Silver scolded himself. He could accept being wrong. Sometimes. “Thank you,” he nodded Sonic’s way. “I really do feel better.”

“That’s a relief to hear,” the speedster smiled back, from where Silver laid draped out over his body still. It was a surprisingly comfortable place to be, the psychic mused. Sonic really was all warm. It made getting up and continuing their hunt for the Emerald look altogether unappealing. “Why don’t we relax for a bit?” Sonic added, lips twitched up at the edges as if he knew what Silver was thinking.

Relax. They had relaxed by the riverbed, and Sonic had made Silver relax more by stroking his quills down. With his best attempts to peek upwards at his spikes Silver hummed, trying to get them to be more droopy and untensed. Sonic liked seeing them that way, after all… For Sonic, Silver could try and make them slouch, even if it felt odd and weird and he also didn’t know exactly why he desired to keep them in the way Sonic enjoyed in the first place.

Or why that smile on Sonic’s lips made him unable to tear his eyes away from it.

Perhaps simply because it made an already radiant person glow even more. No wonder Sonic was friends with many people, if he could smile like this, Silver mulled. Who would be able to resist a smile like that?

He only realised he’d reared down his head to nuzzle over it when his nose struck Sonic’s lips.

…Which were pretty soft. Curiously Silver twitched his nose some more, before moving his head up and down a bit with a little hum that could be mistaken for a purr. “You make it really hard to stay mad, or be scared, when you’re smiling at me,” he murmured. “Did you know that?”

Perhaps not, because Silver blinked as the heartbeat he could feel against his ribs picked up speed until it had all but doubled.

With a more wary frown Silver peered down at Sonic’s chest. Sonic’s cheeks flushed a light pink too… “You okay?” he added, and Sonic jolted.

“Yes! Absolutely! Thanks! I’m glad!”

“It’s true,” the psychic insisted, ears giving a flick. The noon sun was hot for spring, that couldn’t be denied. And with Silver and his fluffy mane on top of him, no wonder Sonic was overheating. “Here, I’ll get off,” the psychic smiled more amused himself, running his fingers past Sonic’s peach fuzz as he lifted himself upwards. “Let’s go to the shade.”

“The shade- Why the shade?” Sonic spoke up, pulling an expression that Silver could not place for once; if he had to guess, he’d say either mirth or mortification. Which was not a combination of emotions Silver thought one could feel simultaneously, and thus he curiously regarded Sonic as he tugged the speedster upright to take him to the safety of a couple of trees.

“To make sure you don’t get sunburned,” he responded with a didactic nod. Sonic wouldn’t hurt himself on his watch! And sinking down in the shadows of the trees felt nice, with the cooler sand underneath his body and Sonic right there for Silver to huddle into his side again, after a moment of hesitation.

And that’s how they laid, Silver’s thoughts stretching out into infinity anew. He wasn’t negligent, Sonic had said, and yet…

“Do you think I could just stop loving the world? Fight because it’s the right thing to do, and not because it matters to me?” the psychic inquired, almost timidly. “If I have no love for it, there’s no point for Eggman Nega to destroy it. Right?”

Sonic had been staring up at the leaves of the trees, still with that odd expression on him. Though, at Silver’s words he blinked, before turning onto his side as Silver stared at him so helplessly. “Aw, Silver. Even if you could, that’s not how it works for him. The fact that you love the world is a bonus for sure, but your nemesis would have tried to destroy it even if you hated and detested it. He and Eggman don’t run on your logic; if you don’t love the world, they’ll go and attack it just because it amuses them. You aren’t the problem here,” Sonic responded, lips twitched up in a sad smile.

With drooping ears Silver swallowed. “That… really sucks.”

He flinched at Sonic starting to laugh once more.

“Most people would be happy to not be the problem!” got beamed Silver’s way, accompanied by one of those winks as Silver bristled.

“If I was, there’d be an easy solution!”

A finger pressed down lightly on his nose. “You know what?” Sonic grinned, in that way that was so completely, utterly, irrevocably Sonic. “I’m glad you’re not the problem. I’m glad you love the world in the way you do. And if there’s anyone who can’t stop loving the world no matter the stakes, it’s you, and that makes you absolutely awesome!”

With a grouse Silver glared at the finger. “Because I’m me?”

“Exactly,” got responded with that infinite smugness again. “And I--"

…Sonic’s words cut out in an abrupt silence.

Silver, who’d been at the start of feeling just a bit hyped, blinked. Sonic looked positively gobsmacked. “And you?” the psychic prodded.

“Er… Uh. Actually, nevermind.”

“No, go on. I want to hear the rest of your pep talk. It’s working.”

Sonic laughed again, but now almost bashfully. “I wanted to say that I love that about you. But that’s perhaps a bit… Let’s say that I think that is wonderful about you.”

Silver tried to think of reasons why semantics like that mattered and got none. “Thanks,” he thus hummed back, nuzzling Sonic’s cheek affectionately. “I really appreciate it.”

“I can pep talk more if you want,” got smiled between cheeks that were red again. With a twitch of a finger Silver moved the branches of the trees so that Sonic got covered by their shade more. “But, you know… I don’t think you need it. Because you don’t want to stop loving the world, do you?”

“Not at all,” Silver sighed back, and he knew that was the honest truth.

If Sonic knew it too, it just had to be.

The two hedgehogs laid together as another quiet fell; but it was one wherein Silver’s heart had, somehow, become just a bit lighter.

And one wherein Silver just kind of kept scooting closer to Sonic, and the warmth of his body. Even if this time Sonic’s hand remained on the ground, the speedster laid with an expression Silver would deem peaceful, something calm on his face as he laid in the shade of the rustling branches with his eyes closed above those tinted cheeks. Silver’s were wide open: it was the only way to really see Sonic, after all.

Sonic.

Whose laughter and smiles and winks were overflowing with that fondness, and who always knew what to say and do,  and who’d gotten Silver to relax his quills more often than they had in literal years.

…Not many people had managed that last one, the psychic mused.

“One last thing and then I’ll shut up,” Sonic eventually spoke up anew, a gentle interruption that left Silver wholly unstartled like this morning too, odd as that was still. “You decide what you want, Silver. Nobody can do that for you but you.”

“That’s good,” the psychic murmured, and laying against Sonic underneath the trees and just watching the world go by had never been so…

Desirable.

Silver couldn’t shake the feeling there was something about Sonic that made it this way. That effect, that he had noticed before, perhaps? How okay Silver had been with nuzzling him over his lips, where for most other people he quite abhorred having to share his personal space? Or how Sonic always seemed to know the truth and just took the time to talk to Silver and listen?

Whatever it was: it made Silver’s lighter heart absolutely flutter.

“Thank you,” the psychic murmured, smushing his forehead against Sonic’s cheeks where any other words failed him, and for just a moment, Sonic’s hand squeezed his anew.

Chapter Text

The sun had been steadily making her way through the sky while Silver and Sonic laid side-by-side in a tender quiet.

But duty called, Silver eventually bolstered his resolve. That second Chaos Emerald was waiting for them. Nice as it had been to be laying here with Sonic and his head empty other than the sounds of the waves and the breaths Sonic drew, they had to keep going. And thus Silver sighed deeply, reared up and nuzzled his nose over Sonic’s lips again to show his silent gratitude one more time… and realised as he pushed himself upright in full that they felt quite dry. Was Sonic dehydrated?!

…Another wave of rosiness had overcome Sonic’s cheeks, too.

Oh jeez, Silver thought as his powers carefully picked up the speedster and put him down on his feet. Poor Sonic really was going to get a sunburn, if even resting underneath a tree couldn’t protect him. “Let’s go. But we should stay in the shade,” the psychic dictated as he set off, up the stairs and onto the streets that led into the city. “There’s water taps nearby where we can drink something. And tell me if you’re feeling faint, okay? I can carry you.”

Sonic stayed… oddly quiet, some hums and nods following as Silver fussed. But Silver’s fussiness was entirely warranted, because as he stopped by one such water tap and formed a makeshift psychic bowl for Sonic to sip out of, Silver could have sworn peach cheeks and the insides of Sonic’s ears coloured redder by the second as the speedster drank a little.

“You take some too,” Silver got urged, though the psychic pointedly prodded his bowl against Sonic’s dry lips until he was sure Sonic had gotten enough water. He stuck his own head underneath the tap after, guzzling down some of the liquid as well. If Sonic was unwell, Silver could at least fulfil the speedster’s wishes so Sonic had one less thing to worry about. “Let’s go look for the Special Stage now,” Sonic interrupted before Silver could bring up that he had aloe vera gel somewhere in his med kit at home that he thought hadn’t spoiled yet, however. “Do you have any place in mind where we can find one?”

With a huff the psychic narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know. You’re the expert, not me. And shouldn’t you rest?”

Sonic chuckled, Silver given a wink that wasn’t as suave as usual. “Right now I just want to run. And a portal can pop up anywhere. So we’re going in entirely blind! Exciting, hmm?”

“Inconvenient, you mean.” Warily Silver glared all over, the energy of the rings thrumming inside him. Well, if Sonic wanted a run, he could get one, because that seemed to be the only way to find those wretched Special Stage portals. Surely they’d gotten enough rings to somehow call one forth? Foreman Marco had given him and Sonic far more than Silver had dared hope for, after all.

But Sonic gestured to the horizon. “The more we can explore around, the more chance we have to find something.”

“Hmm. Well, you did want to see more of this era, right?”

“That’s true,” the speedster responded, and to Silver’s relief his face did seem to grow less red the more they just talked. The water probably just had needed some time to cool Sonic down. “Looking for the Special Stage in Mountain River Zone was a bust, so I propose we leave that one out of our search. Are there more Zones around that we can go to?”

“Oh, plenty. We can go over the entire continent if you want.”

Which, as Silver said that, made him realise that that would take a long time indeed.

“Let’s downscale that a bit,” Sonic mused as Silver frowned. “Is there any Zone that you like going to? I’d love to see the places you enjoy visiting.”

Silver opened his mouth to protest that Sonic didn’t have to go somewhere just because Silver liked it… but somehow, it was hard to make those words take form. It felt nice, namely, that Sonic wanted to see the places Silver enjoyed visiting… And thus the psychic pondered, ears twitching before they jolted. “Well, there’s Chao Lake Zone!”

Sonic’s eyes lit up. “Chao!”

“Yeah, that’s what they say,” Silver nodded back, a light smile tugging on his lips. There was something about Sonic when he looked that enthusiastic, alongside all those other things about him that Silver had been seeing these days. “It used to be just a Chao garden like you find in the wild, but then it got expanded a lot, and now people come there from all over with their Chao to play with each other and participate in competitions and trainings and stuff. But the original garden still exists too, so there’s ample wild Chao around as well, that you can adopt! I help take care of a couple of them. It’s a really good place for them to live because there’s a huge lake in the middle, that kinda looks like a Chao’s head if you squint. And there’s tons of fruit trees for the Chao to eat from, and even big playgrounds, race tracks, rocks to sun on… The Chao love living there!”

The words flowed from his mouth like water in a river, and Sonic’s eyes were trained on Silver’s face the entire time the psychic talked.

Like he heard every word because he wanted to.

Once again, like so many times before these past two days, Silver found himself musing. Sonic didn’t seem like the type of person who’d be down to listen to such a long explanation about Chao gardens, like how he didn’t seem he was more things that he then did turn out to be. Sonic nodded and winked, eyes shining. “That place sounds adorable. If your Chao live there, I’d love to meet them!” got grinned Silver’s way all eagerly, and it made Silver all eager as well.

But he couldn’t help but worry about Sonic’s sunburn still, though the speedster had blasted off before Silver could prod about it more.

…And even if Sonic’s cheeks had gotten most of their peach hue back, some of that red remained still, and despite the minutes stretching out between them as they set off towards Chao Lake Zone, it just didn’t wholly dissipate.

☆☆☆☆☆

A sunburn.

Sonic would have sworn Silver was doing this on purpose, were it not for the fact Silver seemed to be about the most honest hedgehog Sonic had had the pleasure of meeting.

Hopefully he’d managed to stave off the redness of his cheeks and ears once some time had passed, because Sonic was quite sure it’d come right back should Silver try and apply whatever next remedy he could think of, and then he’d have no leg to stand on to decline it. No way the speedster would be telling Silver he was blushing, after all. That’d be far too odd to explain. And it didn’t even make sense to Sonic to begin with! Silver simply seemed to be affectionate with people he liked. Considering the fact Sonic figured his pal had been quite the recluse until now, it would make perfect sense Silver was simply rather touch-starved.

Sonic’s lips decided this was the perfect moment to start tingling in the same way they had during those nuzzles.

With his cheeks flushing red anew Sonic slowed his pace for a second, letting Silver fly a half-step ahead in the meadow they were traversing. That hadn’t been a kiss. Sure, both times it had come close to a kiss, but clearly that hadn’t been the intention. Was what Sonic deemed the most logical interpretation, at least. And why would Silver want to kiss him anyway? Unless customs were different in the future, Sonic saw no reason why Silver would do such a thing. No, it’d simply been gratitude, and it was just the way Silver showed it that made Sonic feel all glowing and odd inside, because he wasn’t much of a cuddler or a hugger and thus he simply found himself having to adapt and that was weird but also a very sound explanation of this whole situation. So then it actually totally made sense, except all the parts that didn’t.

“The view is gorgeous, isn’t it?” Silver’s words interrupted Sonic’s slightly-frantic train of thought so suddenly Sonic jolted right up.

“Oh- Yes! Indeed. You can really tell that it’s spring,” the speedster hummed back, throat just a bit dry and not only because of the flowers lurking around. His eyes hadn’t been on the nature around them in the slightest… With Silver ahead, they’d been on the psychic, and how his quills flowed in the wind and that mane hung in ragged clumps between his back spines. When was the last time the other had brushed it, Sonic pondered… before catching himself, swallowing, and squaring up his shoulders. They were here also because he wanted to see more of the future, not to oogle at Silver, and thus he tore his eyes away from grey fur to at least do what he’d intended-

Before gasping in full at the valley the meadow curled towards.

“Oh, wow! Look at that lake!” Sonic marvelled at the sight laying cradled between the hills, before laughing. It, indeed, looked quite a bit like a Chao’s head, with little islands for eyes and even a smaller pond forming its floating dot. “That’s so cool!”

Something fond and gentle blossomed onto Silver’s face, in the creases around his eyes. “The wild Chao live mostly around that lake, but the whole Zone is tons bigger,” got explained…

Before Silver slowed, and the something fond and gentle fell into a displeasure that made Sonic blink. “And it’s a very popular touristy spot. Unfortunately.”

“Aww, Silver. Chao love people!” Sonic did his best to give a positive spin to the situation, though as they neared, the speedster did have to admit he saw what Silver meant. A large road leading into the valley came into view on the horizon, with tons of people walking or cycling on it next to buses driving by… Even some distant noises of a train reached Sonic’s ears.

“I don’t like taking that road out of the city,” Silver grumbled as Sonic shot him a curious look. “Way too crowded.”

“That’s how it goes with tourists,” Sonic winked back. And there were many: all the sounds of the meadow around them got drowned out entirely by the chatter and traffic noises the more they neared. A shame, though Sonic could remedy it easily by focusing on Silver and the thrum of his powers alongside Sonic’s own footsteps. But eventually they did have to go on it, a glower forming on Silver’s face as he and Sonic took to weaving through the crowds.

The psychic had definitely been looking more sunny lately, Sonic realised, because seeing Silver look as miffed as he had on those two islands in the past was altogether a surprise.

...And seeing him so unsunny, so grumpy and tense, was the last thing Sonic wanted.

That realisation made Sonic jolt right up, nearly bowling right into a cluster of humans and anthro teens loudly talking and laughing with each other ahead. His fingers curled against his lips by reflex, his eyes widened; why did he…?!

…The uptightly frazzled look Silver carried made his heart bleed.

“Hey, Silver,” the speedster murmured, from where Silver’s head turned all over as they stood stranded behind the next particularly large group of people moving at a snail’s pace. “Want me to help you?”

Stiff as a board, Silver shrugged so tensely Sonic feared his shoulders would snap right in half. “With what?”

“The crowds. Remember?” They’d done this before, after all…

Golden eyes blinked as Sonic extended a hand.

“Oh, yes,” Silver murmured back.

And Sonic’s heart fluttered all oddly at the fact his hand got clasped after a mere moment of hesitation.

Silver’s grip was strong and warm, fingers digging into Sonic’s glove before they… relaxed. “Just like at the library,” the psychic just had to add, and Sonic could have sworn something akin to trust glimmered in Silver’s expression. With a squeeze of his hand the psychic dropped onto the ground, their furs brushing together, and Sonic didn’t know how quickly to avert his own eyes and carefully manoeuvre the both of them through the masses at his neckbreaking speed.  

A fancy building with an opened gate arose at an intersection, and Sonic focused all his attention on the sight of a whole cluster of Chao fluttering around people and anthros gathered on a plaza in front. “There they are!”

“There’s so many more,” Silver chuckled, merely waving at the people handling the tickets at a counter beside the building before trudging right on. Cheekily Sonic waved as well before continuing onwards, laughing to himself about the most surprised and curious looks the staff carried once their eyes fell on him. “I guess it’s gotta be weird to see a hero from centuries ago in the flesh,” the psychic mulled, which made Sonic laugh only more.

“I’m sure it’s that, heh-” he began agreeing…

Before the realisation that it far more likely was because he and Silver were actively hand-holding right now hit Sonic like a freight train.

“We can slow down. You’re overheating again,” Silver’s very helpful commentary came, as Sonic choked on a flustered cough.

“Oh, yeah. Sure. The running, hmhm.”

Golden eyes regarded Sonic warily for a few moments more, before Silver shook his head and tugged Sonic past some tourists into a shaded part of the path. The speedster let him, having entirely forgotten that he’d been the one helping Silver out. His thoughts were far more focused on the fact he was acting and feeling really, really strange.

For far longer than since their talk at the beach.

…And with that realisation, something uncertain overcame Sonic next. All those times he’d felt oddly flustered around Silver, or when desires rose up in Sonic he’d never felt for anyone before, or how he was happy when Silver was happy, or how he wanted to give Silver compliments aplenty because of how much the psychic appreciated them, or how being around Silver felt right somehow…

What if it did mean something?

The looming thought of what it could be, Sonic pushed out of his head most promptly, to focus on where he and Silver were actually going.

Silver had been right about the tourists. Had the road to Chao Lake Zone already been crowded, the inside of the park itself was so full even Sonic had to slow down and just let himself be swept along in the masses. Too many Chao to count fluttered around on top, staying close to their owners or going wild on swing sets or bouncy castles or whatever other contraption made for them had been placed throughout the area. “Most people stay close to the entrance, since that is where most of the commodities for the pet Chao are,” Silver explained. Sonic listened with only half an ear, because their hands were still firmly linked together. “Deeper in the garden is where the truly wild Chao live. People can also bring their Chao here if they can’t keep them anymore, so they’re still looked after, but those Chao tend to stay closer to the areas with people. That’s also where you can find Chao that want to be adopted.”

“You know this stuff well,” Sonic responded, doing his very best to radiate cool casualness and figuring he was marvellously failing at that.

“Of course I do! You gotta take good care of Chao!”

“Would you want to adopt one yourself?”

…Something disquieted overcame Silver’s eagerness.

Sonic swallowed as Silver’s hand tensed, before the psychic tugged it away. “Well… No. There’s no water in my hideout for them to live in,” Silver brought up, shrugging awkwardly. “And besides, they’re pack creatures. I’d need at least two… Three or four to be safe, even. Perhaps more, just in case. And…”

“…And?” Sonic prodded.

“And if my hideout ever gets found by that man and he attacks, I don’t want them to be in danger. This place is safer for them. There’s robots and stuff that stand guard, and there’s always people around to care for them,” got sighed out.

“Aw, Silver. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. They’re happiest here, and that’s most important, right?”

With a firm shake of his head the psychic kept trudging on past the people, shoulders squaring up and his steps growing more rigid. Behind him, Sonic frowned deeply as he filed this argument away for the discussion about Silver moving to an apartment.

But before the speedster could bring up that he thought Silver would be an awesome Chao caretaker, Silver halted… before sidestepping onto the grass, either not noticing or not caring for the few odd looks some guests sent his way. Instead the psychic set off swiftly, Sonic shooting the people an innocent grin before setting off after his pal and leaving the pristine paths and well-kept patches of grass and ponds behind. Ahead of them a far more rugged terrain took form; trees stood far more haphazardly scattered and the undergrowth looked far more unkempt. But Silver dove through the branches of some bushes with no hesitation, and thus Sonic followed steadily in his footsteps. “Where are we going?” the speedster inquired-

Which earned him a loud “SHHHHHHH!!!” and a mad gesturing with Silver’s one hand while the other curled to press a finger against tan lips. Sonic hoped that Silver wouldn’t realise that such a loud reaction made it a lot harder to not make any noise in turn, such as a chuckle. But other than a firm shake of his head the psychic kept going, tiptoeing past grandiose bushes with drooping flowers and heavy scents.

Sonic also hoped Silver would forgive him if he got into a massive sneezefest.

“This is where the wild Chao live. They can be more antsy about people, so we gotta be real quiet,” Silver whispered, as Sonic nodded and squeezed his nose shut and grimaced as his eyes started tearing up regardless.

“I won’t- Ah…! Ah-!!”

Silver halted, shooting Sonic a concerned look over his shoulder. “Quiet, Sonic. Not sniffly-”

Sonic sneezed so loud the psychic jolted right in the air with a yelp.

“Sonic!!” the protest came, as Sonic sneezed a second time, and a third. “You’ll scare the Chao like that!”

Helplessly the speedster gestured to the side as his other hand dug through his quills in search of some tissues, Silver peeking over. “…Ah. Wait, I think that grabbed their attention, actually!” got concluded, grey ears perking up at the dozens of curious looks sent their way from all sorts of Chao, that were seated by the edge of a small pond of water.

Sonic blew his nose loudly, which earned him plenty of giggles as the creatures came scrambling and fluttering over. “Chao love fun. Apparently my hay fever constitutes as something fun as well,” he rasped out.

“But there’s no hay here?” Silver mumbled under his breath inquiringly, studying the grasses and the flowers. Though, before Sonic could laugh and explain, Silver’s head had already shot up again, his gaze lighting up. “Hey, Orchid!” got smiled as a white Chao came rushing at him with delighted coos. A dozen more were behind it, every single one of them with huge hearts over their head. “Lily, Poppy, Rose, Daffodil,” the grey hedgehog purred as more and more crowded around him, until eventually only his five quills peeked out of the whirlwind of Chao.

“You’ve given them gorgeous names,” Sonic made sure to compliment-

Before his eyes widened, and his jaw would have dropped if he didn’t have the mind to clamp it firmly, and he could only stare.

Because Silver started babytalking them.

“How are you doing, li’l one? Have you been well? You’re getting cuter every time I see you!” and other approximations of those statements filled the air aplenty every time a new Chao came closer, each creature petted and cuddled extensively. Meanwhile, Silver’s voice had increased a full octave in pitch, Sonic couldn’t put it any other way. “Aren’t they just so sweet?!” got called out next, with the purest delight.

Sonic, gobsmacked as he was, realised only seconds later that was aimed at him. “Oh-! Yes! They’re adorable,” he agreed, laughing as poor Orchid came tumbling to the ground with a slightly-frayed appearance amidst the whirlwind of Chao trying to get Silver’s attention as well. The speedster sunk down on one knee, extending a hand and whistling softly. “Hey, little one. Nice to meet ya!”

The white Chao startled, whirling around and glaring Sonic right down with as dangerous a leer as a Chao could carry. “That’s Sonic. He’s my friend,” Silver piped up, turning around too. Sonic had to muffle a laugh at the sight: every Chao had been trying to cram itself into the psychic’s arms, leading to a rather bulging and pulsating orb of flailing limbs and wings against his chest. “Chao need you to take good care of them, and that includes a nice name, too.” 

Twitching his fingers to entice Orchid to come check him out Sonic smiled. “Seems like you’re caring for them great.”

“Well, they’re not mine specifically. Nobody owns them. The entire park looks after them, I think,” Silver shrugged, as Orchid bounced a little bit closer. Most scrutinisingly Sonic’s glove got beheld and tugged at, one finger even given a careful nibble. But eventually the Chao must have decided he was safe to interact with, for it scrambled closer and butted its head right into Sonic’s palm with enough force to break a rock.

“Ouch,” Sonic snorted as his fingers jolted in reflex. That wasn’t dissimilar to him, at least… “But they still take after you, heh.”

Silver raised an eyebrow, which Sonic could vaguely make out as Chao after Chao got given a pet before getting placed lovingly on the ground. “How can you tell?”

“They’re just as… eager.”

Silver raised an eyebrow, studying Sonic for a while before a “Thanks?” followed. Fondly Sonic smiled at him, stepping closer to pet the rest of the Chao as well.

“And I like that,” he clarified, and his heart leapt just a bit at how the note of wariness that had formed in Silver’s expression lightened immediately. With a fond noise the psychic nuzzled and cuddled the last few Chao in his arms some more, and Sonic couldn’t help but take note of the fact that Silver’s expression was the same as when he was nuzzling Sonic.

His lips, taking to tingling again, got an extensive rub to quell it.

And the fact that Silver looked so sweet when interacting with the Chao also made a lot of sense and meant nothing at the same time, Sonic did his best to convince himself. Who would dare say the psychic wasn’t utterly adorable when babytalking his beloved pets and holding them so preciously? Even Shadow would agree with that, surely.

…But the fact it made Sonic feel so light and airy and adoring did make that looming sensation in the back of his mind loom only more… even if Sonic’s mulling did get interrupted most swiftly by the sensation of a Chao headbutting that rock-breaking force right into his ankle now.

With a cry of pain the speedster flinched, while a few steps in front of him, golden eyes regarded him half-curiously, half-amusedly. “I asked you if you like baby Chao, but you were lost in thought completely. Orchid didn’t appreciate,” Silver remarked, with a chuckle in his voice.

“Owwww… I do, yep,” Sonic responded, Orchid looking up at him very smugly as the speedster leaned down to rub over his aching bones-

Before cool cyan curled around him, and pushed him onto the ground like he was light as a feather.

And Silver stepped closer, and grabbed Sonic’s frozen hand with his own.

“Then wait,” the psychic smiled lightly, turning Sonic’s palm skywards and splaying out the fingers. Sparks of cyan brushed over Sonic’s eyelids next, the speedster jolting as the touches tore him from his flustered stupor. “Close them. I’ve got a surprise for you,” he got urged, Sonic blinking and swallowing before following those instructions. The touch of Silver’s hands around his disappeared, and why did it make him feel so odd?!

In front of him, Silver cooed and shuffled for a second, before humming out a: “Okay, get ready!” as his footsteps neared anew…

A most familiar weight, a bit twitchy and round, got placed into Sonic’s palm.

A big smile formed on Sonic’s face immediately. “Hey, little one!” he cooed at the baby Chao staring at him inquisitively as he opened his eyes. It was a lovely shade of pale blue, almost hitting purple in the light of the sun as Sonic turned it around tenderly to look it all over. “It’s gorgeous! What’s its name?”

“I don’t have one yet... I’ve been going through all blue flowers I know, but they’re either too on the nose name-wise, or it’s a flower that’s usually a different colour that just has the word blue put in front of it, or the flower is actually purple. And I already named one Lavender,” Silver hummed, gesturing to a purple Chao coloured quite a bit like Blaze that loafed in a sunny spot. “And to name a Chao Forget-me-not… That’s kind of setting her up for failure in life, don’t you think?”

Sonic laughed. “With such a name, it would be hard to forget her!”

“Yeah, but it’d be sad for the poor thing!”

The nameless Chao for its part oozed into Sonic’s hand, curiously plucking away at the fabric of his glove Orchid had been munching on and making extensive eye contact before carefully biting it too. Taking after Silver indeed, Sonic grinned inwardly as he patted its head. But as for a name…

“Well, but she’s not really blue-blue, is she? Not like me,” he mused. “So we need a pale blue instead…”

Pensively the two hedgehogs stood side-by-side as Sonic wracked his brain for any and all flower species he knew, that would be suitable for a Chao. A clump of lungwort his trailing eyes fell on made him snort, and the idea of morning glory made him shake his head too, and for tons of other flowers he found himself foiled by the fact they came in so many colours…

Before his ears perked right up. “What about Periwinkle?”

“Periwinkle… I don’t have a Periwinkle here yet. And they do have that lighter blue-purple to them, don’t they?” Eagerly Silver scrambled closer, hands cupping under Sonic’s and lifting it plus the Chao up. “What do you think, Periwinkle?”

A question mark formed over Periwinkle’s head, the Chao cooing… before it turned into a heart and a delighted “Chao!!” followed.

“I think she likes it!” Sonic concluded, fondly patting the little one as well. “Will you train her and stuff?”

“There’s a lot of work to put in that. And I only want to do that if the Chao likes it too.”

With a sagely nod Sonic lifted Periwinkle skywards. “Tell me, li’l one, do you?”

Periwinkle blinked down at him curiously before continuing with its project of gnawing Sonic’s glove down to the thread. “That might be a no,” Silver concluded.

“Maybe she’s gotta experience the thrill of a good run first!” With a laugh Sonic deposited Periwinkle right between his ears, before jumping to his feet. “Hold on tight!”

…But before he could blast off, cyan tugged at him with that great carefulness again. “Sonic!” Silver protested… with a far greater, though most familiar, discontentment. “We gotta look for the Emerald!”

“We can look for it when we’re running!” With a wink Sonic gestured for Silver to follow, before blasting off in a jog. A good run would clear his head on top, and he could really use that right now, because the exasperated noise Silver made before the sounds of his psychokinesis picked up and the other tore right past Sonic made the speedster’s fluttery, floaty mood all worse.

“Fine! Or should I run on foot to make it fair?!” Silver called out over his shoulder as Sonic sped up too, Periwinkle promptly squealing with delight as nubby little hands dug into Sonic’s quills. With a grin the speedster kicked into a full run, easily catching up and only shooting Silver a wink for an answer. That made Silver huff and pout, flying faster as well… And that made Sonic go faster too… And the two of them got caught up in this intricate dance of darting and weaving around each other, Silver in the air and Sonic on land, the speedster laughing his lungs out while Silver’s brow had started furrowed in deep competitiveness but lightened more and more as they just…

Played, together.

“And the winner is Periwinkle!” Sonic cheered as they neared their starting spot around the pond again, little waves striking Sonic’s shoes as he skidded to a halt on the shore. It earned him a delighted squealing, Periwinkle hopping up and down on Sonic’s head like mad. Silver also looked a bit mad as he dropped to the ground, though the unhappy kind as grey-furred arms crossed.

“…That means I lost. Heck.”

That run really had helped, Sonic smiled, because a gentle calmness accompanied his wink and fingerwag. “We weren’t competing. Just running together, you and I.”

“Huh. But then how could Periwinkle win?” the very honest inquiry came next. Though, before Sonic could laugh and explain the concept of encouragement, Periwinkle had cooed and floundered off Sonic’s head to rush into Silver’s arms. Fondly the Chao smushed its head against Silver’s cheek, quite like how Silver did with Sonic at times, and immediately Silver’s gaze lightened again…

And it made Sonic stand very still while his mind went into overdrive.

No, he concluded, as a smile took to radiating on Silver’s lips and Sonic only could tear his eyes away from it once he noticed the most curiously playful look Periwinkle was shooting him, as if the Chao knew. All the things he’d been experiencing did mean something indeed.

And it all had to do with Silver, and Sonic’s blushing cheeks and flustered mood and how he wanted Silver to be okay and happy and having fun, and how he seemed to want that in just a bit of a different way than he wanted that for all his other friends.

What was it that Sonic had once overheard Amy passionately proclaim to a less-than-interested Knuckles? “Being in love is like living in a dream! No matter what you do, your love makes it just a bit brighter,” or something along those lines, and: “Whomever you love will make you feel like you’re walking on clouds. Everything is more intense, larger, absolutely huge…! When you love somebody, there’s nothing that makes you happier than seeing that person happy! If they’re sad, you’ll upturn the entire world to put a smile back on their face.”

Sonic had snorted to himself and figured this wasn’t a conversation he could chime in on if he wanted to, and thus he’d left Knuckles to save himself while Amy had chattered on and on. But her words he’d mulled over a few times more, deciding they at least sounded sweet.

And here, with Silver…

That whole part about doing anything to make sad beloveds happy again, Sonic discarded immediately. He’d do that for anyone he was fond of. Same for seeing them happy in the first place. But that left the concepts of things seeming just a bit brighter, and the cloud-walking, and…

Seeing Silver happy did make Sonic feel like everything was very right in the world indeed.

In a way that was just a bit different, more floaty, more dreamlike and more sunny than anyone else ever had made him feel.

And Sonic wanted to make Silver happy… to feel that more?

Immediately the speedster jolted. Was that really the case? Sure, it’d been an unexpectedly huge pleasure to be staying at the psychic’s side, and get to know him better. And he was nice to talk to, absolutely! And how sweetly Silver interacted with the Chao, babytalking Periwinkle now, made something flutter in Sonic’s chest. The same thing that fluttered whenever Silver came so close for a nuzzle or a headbutt. That had made Sonic sit so stunned when Silver smiled for the first time, and laughed for the first time, and made him listen with such attention as Silver talked about his interests with so much adoration. That had dried Sonic’s mouth out entirely when he’d gotten those nuzzles over his lips.

That had all but leapt out of Sonic’s chest when Silver had talked about Sonic’s smile.

And Sonic could draw only one conclusion based on all that.

“Oh, Sonic,” the speedster mumbled under his breath, smiling so very helplessly at his reflection in the pond as he drew a hand past his face.

Behind him, Silver hummed. “What’s wrong?” got inquired, the water of the pond splashing around his boots as he stepped closer and Sonic’s helpless joy turned only greater as their arms brushed together-

Before something in the world changed.

And Silver gasped while Sonic’s head snapped up, as above the pond, a bright glow of golden light burst into existence.

Chapter Text

“Be good,” Silver urged his Chao. “We’ll be right back. Sonic, can they come after us?”

“The portal should disappear when we jump in,” Sonic soothed, keeping a sharp eye on their sudden find while Silver ushered his pets to safety into bushes and behind trees. The giant golden ring twisted slowly above the pond, right by the little stretch of shore Sonic stood on, and an eagerness buzzed inside the speedster as Silver joined at his side. “Are you ready?”

“Of course I’m ready,” Silver nodded, brow furrowing in that tense way of focus and seriousness, and as Sonic winked and gestured he jumped into the Special Stage, Sonic following immediately after.

And then they were falling.

Sonic blinked open his eyes to a world of light blue and white in all directions, spinning like a kaleidoscope as squares turned into circles into triangles into stars into squares again. With a laugh the speedster shook out his limbs, elation tingling at the tips of his fingers… while, in the distance, Silver stared with almost comically wide eyes. “What the heck?!” the psychic cried out to Sonic, gesturing madly at the world around. “Where are we!”

“This is a Special Stage! Pull me closer?” Sonic yelled back, reaching out a hand towards the other. A quick glow of cyan encasing him tugged him towards his pal in a heartbeat, and Sonic clasped Silver’s shoulder with an assuring grasp. “You can get a Chaos Emerald here if you complete a challenge.”

“…What kind of challenge-” Silver began saying…

Before the spinning of the kaleidoscopic background picked up, the forms churning into haphazard spikes, and Sonic jammed his eyes shut while slapping a hand over Silver’s face as well before the pure white flash that followed could blind them. “Can be anything,” the speedster hummed, waiting until the flare had dissipated before blinking and looking for what had changed.

Instead of emptiness, now spiked balls and colourful spheres galore rushed past him and Silver as they fell. “But it’ll have to do with all that,” Sonic added absentmindedly, eyes trailing around to find what they were here for-

In the distance, a tiny orb of buzzing light blue zipped down as well, as fast as both hedgehogs.

It sang to Sonic.

“The Emerald’s in there!” the speedster cried out, throwing a finger towards the orb as Silver jolted and stared. “After it!”

“Psh. That’s a challenge?” With his face twisting into a more scornful frown the psychic tilted downwards, and Sonic could barely stifle a yelp as he was unceremoniously grabbed and got tugged along. Silver’s hand tightly curled around the one he’d laid on that grey-furred shoulder, pulling it away… but not letting go. Instead his and Sonic’s fingers remained intertwined in a death grip as their fall intensified, Silver tugging himself and Sonic past spiked balls and colourful spheres both as they raced towards the gemstone in perfect sync-

And collided with the orb.

Sonic shrieked as a blast of pain zapped through him.

Silver’s grip shot open as the psychic yelled as well, both hedgehogs getting flung backwards. The psychokinesis around them disappeared into nothing, and for a terrifying second Sonic’s world was only that kaleidoscope and its incomprehensible churning of shapes and colours-! With a grimace Sonic floundered and flailed until he at least felt like he was right-side up again, and could draw a breath and focus.

“Ouch,” he succinctly summarised with a rub over his hurting head. Silver had also turned around, looking twice as spiky as usual, and Sonic narrowed his eyes annoyedly at the orb of light zipping away underneath their feet and growing smaller and smaller. “Okay,” he settled on as he reached for Silver’s hand again, “it’s protected by a forcefield-- Don’t!”

One of the spiked balls around them got psychokinetically grabbed and hurled right down.

A terrifying creak resounded in the distance as it struck the forcefield head-on, the ball ricocheting away and the forcefield lashing out bolts of energy. “Silver-!” Sonic began protesting, though Silver interrupted him with a word that Sonic didn’t know getting hissed out with enough venom to intoxicate an entire nation. Sonic would be scared by that, were it not that Eggman did that often too, and thus crossing his arms and shaking his head disapprovingly came easy. “The Emerald is sentient, dude.”

“…Oh. So not my problem.”

Stop it, Sonic urged his fluttering joy as said fluttering joy decided Silver had only begun looking cuter to the speedster when pouting and chagrined. That mane of his had become altogether adorably puffy, and Sonic decided that, for the sake of calming Silver down, he could trail his hand over it for just a second. “We’ve got limited time here,” he had to scold himself out loud while caressing those lovely white tufts; he could stay here for longer than just a second, for sure.

Silver muttered some more, though he stayed very still and even seemed to push up his chest a bit as Sonic drew his hand past his mane a second time before the speedster mournfully had to pull away. “… Ah. Hmm. We can catch up with that orb easily, but if we can’t get inside it to the Emerald…” the psychic mumbled eventually, that glowering returning again. But, Sonic praised himself, less strongly than before.

“That’ll be the challenge, then.” With his hands firmly tucking into crossed arms to stop any other funny ideas from taking form Sonic flicked his eyes about. All those other spheres that hung in the Stage as he and Silver floated, in every colour of the rainbow, those looked most familiar…

With a kick of his legs Sonic set off towards a whole row of them. “Be careful!” Silver gasped, grey fur brushing past Sonic’s side as the psychic rushed after Sonic, though the speedster shot him an encouraging wink before poking the first sphere with a finger…

And gasping as it disappeared with a spark and a fizzle. “Hey, look! These are safe!” he beamed at his pal, twitching his ears. In his head it was as if Sonic could count with ease how many he had collected as he leaned downwards and started moving again: two three four five, swiftly going into the tens and then the twenties as he picked up speed. Like the Emerald and he and Silver, the row went down as well, and with a breath of delight Sonic took to falling once more.

Silver rushed beside him, brows furrowed as deeply as Sonic had been used to, and after the speedster had darted around a couple of times and dived to new rows of spheres once the previous ones had been depleted, a cyan-coated finger pointed ahead. “Look! There’s the orb!” the psychic cried out as Sonic’s eyes fell on the tiniest dot on the horizon… before both hedgehogs jolted in realisation.

With every sphere Sonic touched, it glowed a bit more pale.

“Ah hah!” Sonic grinned, leaning down even more to go faster still. “We gotta collect all these spheres to break up the forcefield!”

Grey ears perked up. “Then let’s get as many as we can!”

And Sonic squeaked as he found himself pulled into grey arms and bundled against that softest white mane.

“Hey-!” the speedster gasped by instinct… before the realisation that he didn’t exactly mind being in this position made any other word freeze on his tongue. Silver didn’t respond to Sonic’s cry regardless; with a flicker of cyan he blasted off, far faster than Sonic had in the constraints of physics a Special Stage provided. Deftly the psychic weaved around spiked balls that the paths of spheres curled past, the grin on his face growing more smug with every second. But Sonic sat quietly, eventually moving his gaze on the forcefield the Emerald sat inside. It came closer at a rapid pace, and with every sphere Silver collected, its colour grew more dim until eventually the Emerald could be clearly made out through the thin layer left… but it was never this easy.

“There!” Silver smirked as he reached the last spheres, that sparked then fizzled away when the duo brushed against them. Enough to continue, Sonic could feel in his head. And the world around them spun once again, flaring brighter for a second-

While Sonic nodded to himself as the orb halted fully. “What’s it doing?” Silver muttered, hovering beside it as the orb pulsed once, twice…

Before shrinking in on itself and then expanding, bursting outwards with a surge.

The psychic gasped and threw himself backwards, Sonic getting jostled in his arms. “What’s it doing?!” got cried out. “It’s bigger, but it’s still there! But we collected all the spheres!”

“It’s just gotten ready for round two,” Sonic laughed, eyes scanning the kaleidoscopic horizon. “Silver, look.”

In tiny explosions of sparks, new spheres burst into existence; but where for the first round, the spheres had all been in shorter rows of one after the other that had raced downwards, here two far longer rows stretched out to Sonic’s left and right instead… “Two rows,” Silver muttered, head moving in both directions. “And they’re not going down anymore!”

“Hold on…” Sonic muttered as he stared at the orb with the Emerald… which flared once more, before blasting off again in a horizontal line as well.

 “Hey!” Silver cried after it, fur puffing right up. “Urgh…! Sonic, get ready!”

“Wait, Silver.” Before his pal could blast off, Sonic pressed his hand against the other’s chest; the only way he could think of so quickly to make Silver halt. Any thoughts about the strands of soft white mane getting fondled between his fingers were ones Sonic catapulted right out of his mind. “I think we need to split up. Why else would there be two rows this time, instead of one like before?” he forced his attention to instead, though the psychic promptly bristled.

“But I’m fast! I can get them both!”

“With the two of us collecting spheres at the same time, we’ll be faster. We can’t stay here forever,” Sonic urged him. A wayward glance to their surroundings made Sonic swear the kaleidoscope had grown dimmer, still pulsing and spinning in its trippiness but slower than before. They were running out of time…!

A look of wary concern had formed on Silver’s face. But as Sonic shot him a loving smile, he swallowed… “I’ll be okay. I’m the expert, remember?” Sonic encouraged him with a wink.

“You are, yes…” Quietly Silver held Sonic for a moment longer, before giving his head a minute shake and opening up his arms. “Okay. Be careful about the spikes,” the psychic urged.

“I’ll call for you if I need help,” Sonic promised him, fingers caressing Silver’s mane a final time before he pulled away fully. Hopefully Silver had the mind to do the same, though before Sonic could tell him to, the psychic had firmly nodded and raced away. And he had to hurry as well, Sonic scolded himself while his hand tingled. In his head, it felt empty again, and beyond it he could feel the sensation that they didn’t have enough spheres yet to go on. If he just pushed out his chest like so, and held his arms and legs like this and that…

Sonic leaned forward and flew.

“Three, two, one!” he called out, and he and Silver brushed past the first sphere of their respective paths in perfect sync. It was the last Sonic could see of the psychic; he had to keep his eyes on his own way, spinning around those spiked balls that moved to obstruct his path. But that number that he could feel in his head increased twice as quickly as it had the first time, and the forcefield around the Emerald pulsed lightly and grew dimmer the more spheres Sonic touched-

A yelp from far behind Sonic made the speedster whirl around, though.

A little jolt of pain went through his head, and Sonic grimaced as the number in there got knocked around until it had become a few spheres less. “Careful! That thing lashes out!” Silver meanwhile snarled in the far distance; and indeed, bolts of light jumped from the forcefield the more the end of his row of spheres came near.

“Thanks for the heads-up! Be careful!” Sonic cried back, eyes narrowing as he took to moving again. His spheres got further spaced out, the perfect space for a bolt to jump inbetween…

And indeed, Sonic could halt perfectly in time before he got smitten. “Heh,” he grinned to the Emerald. “Sorry, but I’ve got Silver helping me. There’s nothing you can do that’ll stop us.”

With a few more perfectly-timed halts and jumps to action Sonic’s confidence grew only more, the last of his spheres collected easily. Also Silver brushed past his own handful left in his row… and Sonic hummed as the two hedgehogs floated perfectly side-by-side again. How precise of the Emerald to plan out its rows of spheres that way, though Sonic figured he didn’t have to expect anything less from a gemstone with infinite power.

Speaking of the Emerald, the forcefield around it looked altogether pale now. “Just one more round, and we’ll have won!” Sonic remarked cheekily. And they had to hurry, because the swirling of the kaleidoscopic background had grown only more sluggish, shapes and forms losing their definitions fast…!

The forcefield, however, glowed brighter again. “Watch out,” Silver muttered. Before Sonic could say anything, cyan had enshrouded him once more and pulled him upwards. Right in time: underneath Silver’s boots the forcefield pulsed once, twice… and then it swelled again.

And promptly, Sonic’s eyes widened. “Whoa… It’s gotten huge!” Silver gasped, and indeed: the entire space they’d been collecting their orbs in just now had been overtaken by it. But the forcefield had lost most of its lustre, too. The Emerald sat inside with crystal-sharp definition, its protection only as thin as a bubble now…

All around it, another two paths of spheres zipped into existence. But where the rows from the previous round had gone in opposite directions, these sat right beside each other: they swirled and coiled past the surface of the forcefield like the wildest of ribbons. And Sonic gasped as the orb with the Emerald pulsed once more before it took to moving again… but where it had moved in a straight line before, now it trailed past the upcoming dual rows of spheres, with bolts of energy dancing at its surface and some of the spheres even disappearing into the forcefield before dipping out again as it churned around.

“Round three. We finish this, we get the Emerald,” Sonic hummed, frowning at the giant forcefield. The Emerald didn’t want to make it easy for them, clearly.

Beside him, Silver rubbed his chin. “Huh. Look how close those rows are… If either of us were to stick out our hands, he could collect both at the same time.”

“There’s a reason for that. There always is,” Sonic nodded, though he grabbed Silver and tugged him towards where the rows of spheres started. They’d find it at the right moment; now they just had to start, before they ran out of time. Slowly, ever so slowly but unbiddingly, the world’s sluggishness had begun stilling around them entirely, and once it had frozen in full…!

“You take left, I take right!” the speedster decreed, spreading out his hand by instinct-

And fingertips brushed against his.

“Let’s go together. I can propel us both, that’ll be fastest,” Silver hummed, deep frown on his face. And with that, they set off, floating side-by-side before kicking into the next gear and rushing onto the paths of spheres. They wove and spun and made twists and loop-de-loops around spikes and to flee away from the forcefield rising up like a wave, and with every movement, Sonic’s stomach fluttered more.

With how large the forcefield had gotten, Sonic could have sworn he and Silver had to halt more often than that they flew to collect spheres. It hovered almost ominously right underneath them, occasionally swishing upwards before sinking down… Bolts of light got shot from its surface more and more frantically the more orbs the duo collected. But nothing in Sonic could care; he floated, Silver’s fingertips warm against his, and every spiked ball and bolt he and Silver dodged like they were two halves of one mind. And the forcefield fizzled out more and more…

Until it disappeared completely.

“Gotcha!” Silver grinned victoriously. Sonic whooped as well, the duo halting as Silver’s hand snapped sideways and Sonic’s wrist got grabbed before the two of them dove head-first towards the Emerald-

And cried out anew, as the forcefield flickered back to life the moment they drew nearer.

Sonic’s hand tensed by instinct as they got ricocheted away, that number he could feel in his head slinking in size once again. “Ugh-!” the speedster muttered out, rubbing it. “Shoot! Quick, get us back to the rows with spheres!”

With Silver’s powers enveloping him again, the duo blasted back to where they left off and slammed through a bunch of the spheres altogether hectically, as Silver snarled. “What did we do wrong?! Look, that forcefield is diminishing again!”

Sonic’s eyes had been more on their surroundings, and how the kaleidoscopic background stood almost entirely still now. Something tense and tight took hold of his throat, as if the Special Stage could collapse in on itself at any second, like a black hole…! “New plan,” he muttered, mind whirring into overdrive. “Silver, keep collecting spheres. Once that forcefield has gone away, keep collecting more, but throw me at the Emerald at the same time.”

“…Sure,” the psychic hummed back, that cool cyan enshrouding Sonic as the speedster got moved to below Silver. Silver moved to the middle of the rows, hands extending to brush past the orbs, and as Sonic stared and stared, the forcefield grew paler and paler, until…!

“Now!”

Sonic flew.

With his hands outstretched in front of him, the speedster shot to the Emerald like lightning…

And heat blazed through his palms as they clasped around the gemstone.

“Got it!!” With a delighted laugh Sonic let himself tumble, the Emerald pressed against his chest so he didn’t drop it. “Silver, look!” he beamed upwards, to where all spheres around Silver had disappeared immediately-

And to the background of the Special Stage, that spun just once more… and then stilled fully.

A hush of quiet overcame the entire place. Sonic swallowed as his eyes got pulled past Silver as by an invisible force… as darkness came cascading from above, the symbols and colours shattering into fragments that dissipated into nothing.

“Silver!” Sonic cried out as he flailed haphazardly, hand stretched out in a desperate reach for the other. The Special Stage flickered, the leftover spiked balls above them sucked right into the darkness…!

Cyan raced at him, and as the light blue void shattered and crumbled back into reality, Silver’s fingers intertwined with Sonic’s.

With a yell the speedster got catapulted right back, Silver grunting as well and the Emerald getting struck out of Sonic’s hand as they crashed first into water and sand, and then rolled onto grass. The duo bounced and tumbled until collapsing into a heap of limbs and quills, Sonic coughing as he spat out Silver’s tail and one of his feet getting an accidental headbutt in the meantime, if Silver’s cry of pain and an extra ache going through Sonic’s lower leg were any indication. But beside him a soft light blue glowed, and Sonic grinned. “We got the Emerald!” he cried out- and then he immediately had to stifle a sneeze, a daisy innocently sitting right beside his nose.

“You got a big problem if you don’t get your legs off of me!” got yelled out somewhere underneath the speedster, alongside a whole bunch of kicking and fussing that left Sonic needing to swallow down a laugh. With some difficulty he managed to push himself off Silver, the psychic glowering as he scrambled away while rubbing at his head. “Your shoes are made of metal?!”

“Friction-proof and heat-resistant,” Sonic winked back at him, sniffling extensively before studying his pal. “You okay there?”

With one more rub Silver glared, before pulling his hand away as a slow nod followed. “Yeah… Yeah, it’s fine.”

A flutter of that helpless joy inside Sonic rose up again, except it swiftly turned to far more cheeky joy. “Should I take a look?” he inquired, leaning closer with a wink. “Just to make sure you’re not bruised?”

“Oh, jeez. It hurts just a little,” got sighed back.

…But Silver did not protest as Sonic scooted closer still. In fact, the psychic readily lowered his head, that lightly dropped against Sonic’s one hand while Sonic’s other brushed past the strands of hair and untensed quills. “Does it hurt here?” Sonic hummed, gently rubbing over the spot Silver had been clutching.

And he was sure Silver purred.

Clicky little rumbles filled the air as Sonic concentrated, Silver’s eyes half-lidded as a few deeper breaths got sucked in through the psychic’s nose. “Heh,” Sonic’s pal piped up, chin oozing into Sonic’s palm just a bit more. “You know, whenever Eliza hurts herself – that happens a lot – James is always like: ‘Press a kiss on it!’, because that helps, or apparently.”

Sonic, whose cheeky joy slammed right back into flustered helpless joy, did his best to produce a hum that didn’t in any way sound croaky or awkward. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah. What you’re doing made me think of that. But I think what you’re doing helps lots better.” With his purrs picking up Silver leaned his head against Sonic’s hand even more. Which made it very hard for Sonic to point out that parents did that kissing thing a lot with children, and it was probably also done by people who just liked each other a lot. The latter of those two statements he really couldn’t get past his lips, because knowing Silver, the psychic could either start urging him to try it out or try it out himself, and that would make Sonic combust on the spot.

If Silver noticed Sonic’s inner turmoil, he didn’t act like it. Instead the psychic huffed out a content-sounding sigh, before shaking his head and leaning back again. “Thanks,” got smiled Sonic’s way. “My head feels all better.”

With a final caress, Sonic nodded. “That’s great. And we got an Emer-”

“The Emerald!”

Sonic squeaked as Silver jolted upright. “Where is it?!” the psychic hollered at his familiar volume, droopiness having disappeared into spikiness as if Silver had never shared a relaxing moment with Sonic to begin with.

…Completely forgetting Emeralds dropped in the grass nearby could probably be taken as a sign that he was crushing bad, Sonic inwardly grimaced. The gemstone glowed as he jumped up too and took two steps to where it laid on the ground, altogether neglected. “Here it is, safe and sound,” the speedster decreed, picking it up and rubbing his fingers over the top as an apology. He could have sworn it made the thing’s glow flicker just a bit, while a sense of amusement flitted past his fingertips.

Silver’s shoulders slumped, sparks of cyan flitting over the Emerald’s glowing surface as well. “Phew. That’s a relief. That was quite the fall.”

“Nothing we can’t handle! And Emeralds are plenty sturdy also. Should it break, you can just put together the shards and it’ll repair itself with ease,” Sonic informed him, and promptly had to stifle a snort at the look of disdainful affrontedness that formed on Silver’s face.

“Why would an Emerald break?!”

“If someone like Eggman makes it,” the speedster explained, ears dryly twitching-

As Silver froze.

And a silence fell.

“Sonic,” the psychic breathed eventually, after what had to be minutes. “We got both Emeralds. That means…”

In that silence, Sonic’s smile had long fallen off his face.

Beside him, Silver’s quills began to droop: first slowly, then faster, until eventually the hedgehog looked altogether like a little baby bird left alone in the rain.  

And both of them stood in silence once again, eyes trained on the glimmering gemstone in Sonic’s palm, until the grey hedgehog cleared his throat first and shifted, golden eyes meeting green.

“That means you can go home.”

Chapter Text

The moment the words slipped past his lips, the disquieting feelings inside Silver grew a thousandfold stronger.

“Yes,” Sonic piped up first, after clouds that had been trailing by on the horizon had gotten blown miles further and when the sun’s descend to sleep had spilled a chill over the world. Or maybe it felt chilly because there was this lump in Silver’s throat, heavier than rock, that only choked him up more at Sonic’s quiet agreement. “Yes, I can.”

“…Okay.” Before any new emotions could take form, Silver gave his pelt a shake to stop them in the first place and push all his other ones away too. Just rip it off, like a band-aid. No thinking about it; no thinking about how Sonic’s words made a hurt blast through Silver’s chest so strongly he almost fell right over. Instead he called forth their white Emerald, that formed in his palm with a little zip of light. “Should we do it right n-”

“No!” Sonic interrupted.

The sudden loudness of his voice made Silver flinch.

“…No?”

“Come on, Silver. I’m not gonna bail on you immediately now that I can,” the speedster winked, with a smile that didn’t meet his eyes on his face. “…Tomorrow. Let’s have one more fun night together.”

Silver only realised he was holding his own Emerald in an absolute vice grip once the gem’s heat had radiated through his glove and poked against his palm, a little jolt that made Silver startle all over again. “Sorry,” he mumbled to it, transferring it to his other hand and letting it lay there loosely as he looked back to the speedster. “Are… you sure? You’re welcome to stay at my place for as long as you want, but…”

But Sonic had responsibilities in the past, he scolded himself immediately after. How dare Silver suggest that Sonic just neglect those to sate Silver’s sudden desires to spend more time with him? This was everything they had been working towards! How dare Silver even think that Sonic should leave his friends in the past in fright and terror due to his disappearance, and give Eggman the possibility to run amok over the entire globe with no-one there to stop him?! How dare he demand Sonic be with Silver, instead of where he belonged and surely wanted to be?! No, the psychic growled inwardly at that pleading desire to be around Sonic for even longer, he was being selfish. Utterly, unrepentantly selfish, and that was horrible of him.

“Silver,” Sonic’s voice gently cut through Silver’s admonishings. “Why the angry face?”

He could never tell Sonic about his thoughts, the psychic realised immediately.

…Because Sonic would not agree with them.

And it made a bittersweet warmth blossom through Silver’s hurt, that someone could think so highly of every other person on the planet, and him too. “It’s nothing,” he thus settled on, ears drooping still, but the smallest of smiles formed on his face as well. All because of Sonic, and only now that they had collected Sonic’s way out did Silver realise that he had never truly seen before just how Sonic made him feel.

Like, even if he wasn’t doing anything special and was just trying to help everyone else because it was the right thing to do, he was a very special person indeed.

“Thank you. So much,” Silver murmured, and he could only hope that Sonic knew what he was thanking him for.

That little smile on Sonic’s face broadened, and it lit up the speedster’s eyes like how sunlight rolled over the world as the cloud blocking it moved away. Sonic’s hand lifted up slowly, hovering in the air for a moment… before it moved closer, and warm fingers curled around Silver’s Emerald. It disappeared in a little flicker of light and settled in Silver’s chest like a heavy warmth, as Sonic’s Emerald faded as well. “Thank you, for taking such good care of me.”

Oh, yes. Care for Sonic. Immediately Silver’s shoulders stiffened again; if Sonic was staying another day, Silver would be right there to look after him more! “I… want to do something nice for you,” the psychic mulled, though he didn’t know why exactly and also what was nice to do for other people. Make sure they were protected and didn’t get hurt and die, definitely, but it wasn’t as if Sonic really needed Silver to do that for him. Heck, Sonic had been doing a lot more to help Silver than vice versa… A deep frown formed on Silver’s face. “You saved my life multiple times. I promised I would pay you back.”

Sonic… laughed. “Bud, we talked about that. I’m paying you back for saving my life, remember?”

“But you saved mine more than I saved yours!”

A pensive frown of a blue brow followed at Silver’s protest, Sonic humming and counting on his fingers for a bit as the psychic regarded him. He couldn’t get tired anytime soon of just looking at Sonic commencing with his antics, Silver noted to himself with a flicker of amusement. Because… they made Sonic look cute. Cute, like how Chao were cute too. Cute like how Sonic had laid swaddled like a baby in Silver’s blanket on the hammock, sleeping so contently after Silver had saved him. And before he knew it, that little smile on the psychic’s face had at least doubled in size. That cuteness of Sonic’s goofy movements soothed the hurt inside him quite efficiently. “I think we’re even,” eventually followed. “You saved my life from Eggman and I yours from GUN, and in the pipe we saved each other. So-”

“The leafhopper??” Silver huffed back, leaning closer to bonk his head against Sonic’s and help jog his memories with a light application of moderate force.

Something akin to a squeaky hum followed… but so did warm hands curling over Silver’s head and against his ears. “Okay, okay! You got me,” Sonic laughed. “Need help thinking up a nice thing to do?”

“Yes. What do people do that’s nice? Is there anything you’d want to see, or go to, or experience…?”

Experience before Sonic left, and Silver could barely stifle a flinch as all his fluttery happiness got choked right over by the hurt flaring up in him all over again.

Forcefully Silver swallowed to push away that stupid lump in his stupid throat, shuffling backwards and aiming his eyes at Sonic like there was nobody else on the planet but the speedster. Sonic’s smile; if he just looked at it enough, Silver couldn’t feel bad…! And luckily Sonic smiled still, though it had become a bit odd. Still wholly, genuinely Sonic, but as Silver stared, he could have sworn there was more beyond it. Weird. “How about we, you know… Perhaps we could get dinner somewhere!” the speedster chattered out, quite cheerful-sounding all of a sudden. “I am getting kinda hungry- Ah, we don’t have to go anywhere big! Just, you know… something lowkey, seeing what kinda tasty stuff your city has to offer, things like that. If you, er, see what I mean…?”

Dinner, huh. Pensively Silver regarded the horizon next, where the sun had been steadily sinking down while pinks and greys had begun coating the clouds. That did mean tomorrow would be coming all too soon… Silver pushed that thought away with a firm headshake. “Dinner sounds good,” he forced all his attention towards instead. He wasn’t at all hungry, but if Sonic was, there was nothing Silver would stop at to get him something nice to eat! Sonic deserved it, after how much he’d helped. “I don’t really go to restaurants, ever… I just buy stuff for my campfire. But this city loves its sandwiches and fish stuff. We can get some of those, if you want?”

“Not a fish freak, but I’d love to try whatever is famous in this place,” Sonic warmly responded. “And we can use the rings from Foreman Marco to pay for it!”

“Sure, but then with my salary and not yours, because I don’t want you to have to pay for your nice thing.”

“Sounds fine by me,” Sonic smiled so incorrigibly, for reasons Silver really just could not place. “It’ll be a fun night, promise.”

Fun. There that word was again, that made Silver’s eyes narrow and his pelt bristle. Would it be acceptable for him to have a fun night? It wasn’t an adventure anymore, since they got both Emeralds now, so maybe it was fine.

What was less fine was the fact Sonic’s hand came closer again, first brushing over Silver’s shoulder and making the psychic hum lightly at the pleasant sensation… and then Silver yelped very indignantly as it swooped down and skittered past his side. “But!” Sonic grinned as Silver hissed and shot into the sky, puffing up all his quills indignantly. “Perhaps we should first get cleaned up a bit, hmm?”

“Clean up- Why?” Silver huffed back, craning his head to study himself while warding off Sonic’s other hand coming in with distracted swats of his own. Sure, he looked a bit mucky and dusty because that stupid Special Stage had decided to bring him and Sonic back into reality through catapulting them, but that wasn’t any worse than he looked on a normal day of adventuring.

…Those incorrigible fingers dragged very lightly over his mane next, however, and Silver froze. That felt far nicer… “We look a bit like we got put through the wringer, pal. Hardly polite company to go to a place to get food,” Sonic told him, thumb rubbing over the strands of white fur. And Silver did have to admit that the speedster had gotten a couple of flowers and what-not ensnared in his quills alongside the dirt that coated his blue pelt, which made the psychic snort.

“What are you talking about? You look great with all those flowers.”

“Flowers…?” With his head tipping to the side Sonic trailed his free hand over his head, and in one swift motion, a flower got plucked out from between them. Silver smiled before he could help it as it got held up. “One daisy,” the speedster chuckled as well.

“Just one? Hundreds of them. Look.”

With a most careful psychic touch Silver tugged on Sonic’s arm, the two of them floating back to the pond’s edge and dropping lightly on the sandy shore. Their reflection got blurred a bit by the stirring of the water, but Silver still nodded didactically as Sonic huffed out a laugh and trailed his hands past his bloom-covered fur. “Heh. That just makes me a cool flower prince!”

“…That, or goofy-looking.”

“Nothing goofy about flowers,” Sonic winked back, arms thrown out as he gave himself a little twirl. And Silver had to concede: he did look pretty like that, with splotches of whites and pinks and greens between the rich blue colour of his quills. In the pink glows of the setting sun, Sonic could not have looked more stunning, and Silver could not have struggled more to tear his eyes away from the sight.

Except Sonic’s face scrunched soon after. “Your hay fevers,” Silver helpfully reminded him as gloved fingers shot up to squeeze a long black nose shut.

“Yeah… Cool flower prince aside, maybe I should take these out before, you know, going out to eat. Would hate to sneeze all over your plate, heh.”

“I’ll take them out for you,” Silver offered, darting behind Sonic’s back immediately. Removing all those pretty colours from Sonic’s fur was sad, but it’d also be sad if the speedster tragically perished from those fevers of his, and thus Silver reached up with a determined nod. “Stand still.”

“Standing still isn’t my forte-” Sonic begun saying…

Though it fell quiet most abruptly as Silver huffed and moved his fingers right between Sonic’s quills.

With a shrug at the complete halt of quips and chatter in front of him Silver set off. Carefully he plucked each daisy and clover and dandelion seed from amidst Sonic’s spines, floating them into the pond with his powers until eventually the water surface was covered in a sea of blooms. “They’re stuck very deep,” he filled the silence as his fingers pried even further, a lick of psychokinesis needed to tug out the farthest stems. He could have sworn Sonic flinched at that… “Sorry,” the psychic added, one hand reaching around to gently trail over Sonic’s upper chest and stop him from fussing. How unfortunate that Sonic didn’t have a mane like Silver’s to caress, but surely it was the spot that made it so pleasant, not how fluffy it was. “My powers can feel cold, I know. But they won’t hurt you.”

…If possible, Sonic became only more fussy the moment Silver’s fingers pressed into that peach patch on his front. “Uh, uh… Yes! Yes, no, no, I know that,” was the approximate response that followed, Silver raising an eyebrow.

“You don’t stand like you do.”

“I mean… You’ve grabbed me with them before, and nothing happened then. So I know,” the – honestly almost quiet? – response came, Sonic’s ears twitching. There was a flower behind one of those as well, Silver saw, moving his hand up to try and pluck this one out too… Though…

“Stop moving your ear,” he huffed. “I can’t grab the flower like this.”

“It tickles,” Sonic snorted, and Silver could have sworn his ear began twitching even more. Left, right, forward, backwards, turning in little circles…

Probably teasing, Silver concluded. Well, two could play that game: a quick flick of a glowing cyan finger was enough to freeze the ear mid-twitch, and also to keep it upright as said finger dove right behind it to scratch it even more.

It elicited a laugh so bright it honestly caught Silver by surprise for a moment.

“Silver!” got protested, the speedster squirming with chuckles galore. “That’s worse!!”

“You did it to me too!” Silver smugly informed him, his hand pressed against Sonic’s chest tightening its grip until the speedster was fully stuck in his floundering. With his powers keeping Sonic’s ear frozen Silver dug his fingers in deeper, lightly trailing over the skin and digging until they could push up the stem somewhat. “There we go,” the psychic  concluded once he could curl his fingers around it in full, tugging it out with a flourish. That was the last one, some further scrutinising revealed, and with a didactic nod Silver let it float into the pond as well. “Your quills are clean again.”

Sonic produced a very flustered-sounding kind of noise once Silver pulled both his hands away, two stumbling steps forward and around following. “Don’t just freeze my ears like that!” the speedster protested, though the most dazzling smile shone on his lips as he faced Silver anew-

The most dazzling smile between glowing cheeks.

“Your face is all red. Again,” Silver pointed out as his eyes laid on Sonic’s muzzle, unable to be torn away.

Slowly Sonic rubbed over it. “Heh. Is it?”

“Are you ill? Because of your fevers? Or is your sunburn getting worse? We can’t use that now.”

“No, no, I don’t think so.”

“Then what’s making it be red?”

Sonic cleared his throat, quite extensively, while his hand curled over where Silver’s had pressed against his chest. “Was it the laughter,” the psychic guessed in the meantime, rubbing his chin. Surely people could be laughing so much their whole face flushed? Even if Sonic had not been laughing that hard; but he had been squirming. Probably that, then.

…Even if the way Sonic smiled made Silver’s cheeks also be red, though for him, the psychic knew for sure it was a blush.

Though why he was blushing, he couldn’t tell.

…And he didn’t want to think about it anyway. Because a silence had fallen between them, and in that silence, the realisation that Sonic would be leaving soon snuck up on Silver and struck him in the heart so suddenly that it made him almost stagger. The sun had set more; tomorrow had drawn nearer without the psychic even realising it. That stupid lump in his throat rose up heavier than before, the hurt inside him flared back to life brighter than it had ever since they got their second Emerald, an icy cold washed over Silver…!

Silver fought to push it all away, to ignore it, to not let himself feel it. “Uhm, there’s… Maybe we should…” he muttered out, though he had no idea what he even wanted to say to begin with and where to take his words. As long as there was no silence in which they just stood side-by-side, with around them a world that was bringing them closer to tomorrow with every passing second.

But Sonic smiled.

And as long as Sonic smiled, Silver realised as that heaviness inside him let itself only be ignored with cheerful thoughts and actions that made Sonic smile only more, everything would stay a little bit alright until tomorrow.

☆☆☆☆☆

What an interesting day today had been, Sonic laughed to himself. From waking up with Silver snuggled against him purring up a quiet storm in his sleep, to them delivering mail and Silver getting sent flying by Foreman Marco’s anger, to them meeting his pal’s Chao and going to the Special Stage, to Sonic… vehemently trying to argue that Silver could do with a quick rinse and maybe a brushing. Not a day Sonic had ever lived through before, that much was certain.

“No! It’s not needed. I’m fine and you’re hungry,” Silver protested, arms crossed and his chin jutted right up in the air. Beside him sat Periwinkle, who’d come meandering over and studied Silver for a moment before adorably copying the psychic’s movements and keeping its arms similarly crossed and face toppled upwards. Sonic, faced with such a dual expression of disdain and unwillingness, could only laugh at the scene.

“Silver, your fur is full of sand. Again. You think we can walk into the city with you looking like a muck monster?” With a playful wink Sonic wriggled his fingers towards Silver’s mane. Had the front been looking decent these past two days, now also that part of it had become quite knotted and tangled… Sonic dreaded to think what the back of it would be looking like. So far from Silver’s supplies in his hideout, the speedster had yet to see his pal pull out a comb or anything similar.

With a harrumph and altogether tender sparks of cyan the psychic swatted at Sonic’s hand. “We’re wasting time. It’s gonna take like three days to even go to the city to get dinner if you keep this up. And then you’ll long have starved.”

“Or it could take like three minutes if you get into that pond right now and wash yourself off,” Sonic smirked back. Speaking of, perhaps if he just set the right example… A grin formed on the speedster’s face as he sauntered towards the pond’s shore and bundled together some grass and such into a makeshift sponge, an adventurer’s number one tool for quick washes when out and about.

“A few hours, you mean,” he could have sworn Silver muttered behind him-

And then, a silence followed.

Sonic, after dipping his sponge into the water and wringing it out, sent a curious look over his shoulder. Silver had taken to floating, and-

The moment their eyes met, the psychic’s gaze shot away.

Huh, Sonic mulled. Odd. Perhaps the fact Periwinkle had keeled over and now rolled giggling like mad through the flowers and grasses gave an indication of what was going on. Which probably was the massive orb of water that had taken to floating over the pond’s surface as Sonic turned around again.

“Heh. Silver?” Sonic innocently remarked, gaze focusing on it sharply. “There’s a huge bubble of water hovering riiiiiiight in front of me.”

Behind him, the distinct noise of a huff of amusement getting muffled in a glove followed. “Really now? Spooky.”

“Hm-hmmm. And if I look very close at it,” Sonic drawled next with his head turning over his shoulder again to smirk at Silver, “it’s almost like there’s some cyan in there.”

The speedster’s knees grew quite feeble at the look of pure mischief radiating off Silver’s face. That was new; Sonic couldn’t recall a single time Silver had looked this cheeky. Even during that first time he had laughed, that had etched himself in Sonic’s mind like lines in stone, he’d seemed so much more sober. “Is that so,” got purred back at Sonic this time, though. “Well, considering the fact you’re taking ages to get clean, maybe that bubble of water is there to get you to hurry up, huh? Like so.”

And before Sonic could say anything else, cyan came rushing closer to him, too.

Sonic had to cheat. Outrunning psychokinesis was hard, but not impossible; had he truly blasted off, Silver would have stood no chance at catching him. But a half-second of leaning forward into a running pose instead of just racing away immediately had given his pal the edge needed, and Sonic laughed as he got snatched right off the ground.

That laugh turned into a whooping yell as he got flung, and then into a splash and a whole lot of bubbles, as Sonic first smacked into Silver’s water orb and then he plus orb went sailing right down and made the water of the pond spat up meters high as they crashed into it.

Sonic, sinking to the pond’s shallow bottom faster than a rock, only then realised he’d never told Silver swimming was not one of his fortes. But once again, cyan nudged at him and tugged at his arms until the bottom of the pond angled upwards and Sonic could flounder his head above the surface.

Where his nose bumped right against Silver’s.

“There!” the psychic nodded didactically, hovering nary an inch away from Sonic’s face. “All clean again. And a lot faster than with a sponge.”

Considering the fact Sonic found himself quite frozen once anew, reacting when Silver hoisted up his arms and dragged him out of the pond was rather hard indeed. With another purr Silver deposited them both onto the sand, ears perked up eagerly… before a look of concern followed. “Are you okay?”

Sonic opened his mouth to say that yes, he totally was and it certainly wasn’t like his nose was sparking like electricity… and then blinked. Two could play this game. “Well…” he thus hummed, making some awkward wriggling movement with his body. “I am, but some quills on my back are hurting a bit.”

“Oh! Maybe they hit the water wrong. Let me take a look,” Silver retorted, ears shooting right up as worry flooded over his face. Gloved hands grabbed at Sonic’s shoulder, carefully trying to turn the speedster around…

Except Sonic didn’t budge, but he did snatch Silver’s arm before his friend could so much as utter a single word, and did send him flying into the pond next with one fell swing.

“Sonic!” was all that Silver could shriek before he crashed into the water and promptly went under. Behind Sonic, Periwinkle squealed on the grass and made itself scarce as Sonic laughed, and laughed only more as Silver resurfaced with an expression stuck between wide-eyed surprise, a miffed glare, and…

Amusement.

The speedster cackled helplessly as Silver flung himself out of the water and rushed right at him. The psychic’s weight crashed into Sonic’s chest, just like how Sonic had jumped at him when they’d been talking at the docks, and Sonic let himself go heavy and be toppled over. He’d teach Silver how to play more carefully with time; now Sonic just had to laugh about the fact both of them would become just as mucky once again if they kept tumbling all through the grass like this. “Gotcha!” the psychic hissed playfully as Sonic ended up pinned right under him. “How dare you-! …Oh.”

“Oh?” Sonic smirked back, as golden eyes widened in realisation.

“I guess I can’t actually say anything about that, huh?”

“Nope! Eye for an eye, buddy,” Sonic grinned back, carefully grasping Silver by his scruff to help put the both of them back onto their feet. “And look! Now we’re both clean again… mostly.”

…Though Silver did still need to get that brushing, Sonic deemed next. With Sonic’s hand holding onto that fluffy mane of his, the endless burrs and tangles could be noticed all the more easily. “Huh. That didn’t take so long,” the psychic meanwhile conceded as Sonic let him go… and promptly got scrutinised most suspiciously. “You’re up to something.”

“If you turn around, you can see what,” Sonic coyly smirked back.

And he wondered if it meant something that Silver snorted before immediately doing what Sonic implored.

…Perhaps this was his chance. That helpless joy in Sonic fluttered like a little bird ready and primed to leave the nest, to fly wherever the wind would take it. But he couldn’t just leave without saying something, anything, and then go pretend like he hadn’t been feeling so floaty and sunny any time Silver was just being Silver whenever the two of them would meet again. Who knew when that would be anyway? No, Sonic would never just leave matters unspoken like that. Why wait until the dinner date he had set up to go talk about these things?

“I am all soaked now,” the psychic noted over his shoulder as Sonic stepped closer, the speedster humming as he lined up his thoughts as neatly as he could.

“We’ll dry up in the sun. I think it’ll be a warm evening.”

Silver…

Stiffened.

And the air around them changed.

“Yeah! Yeah. I guess so,” got mumbled out after multiple seconds, a whole lot less enthusiastically than before. A humming noise that almost sounded like a laugh but couldn’t be less joyful if it tried followed, Silver standing awkwardly fussing in the pink light of the setting sun.

Sonic blinked, his building-up of courage and creating of ideas on how to best talk about his feelings finding themselves rather dampened all of a sudden. He couldn’t make out Silver’s expression, but the way the other’s head had angled down was all the more noticeable for it. Silver was drooping just as much as he had been when stating Sonic could go back to the past…

With his thoughts whirring about both his helpless joy and Silver’s sudden sadness, Sonic set off to work in the meantime. His suspicions had been right: the back half of Silver’s mane looked altogether awful with its tangles and burrs. Carefully his fingers curled into the very edge of Silver’s tuft of fluff, lightly tugging at the knots there to smooth them out…

…Silver didn’t stand as oozingly and relaxedly as Sonic had hoped.

Most alluringly the speedster scratched his fingertips over the skin underneath, and the parts of Silver’s neck that he figured rarely got touched. And sure, it did make the other shudder… but also flinch, and flick his head and ears, while he hunched in on himself only more throughout it all instead of relaxing. “Can you keep talking?” Silver mumbled eventually. “I don’t like it when it’s quiet. It makes me feel… I dunno.”

Sonic’s ears flicked in surprise. Silver, asking him to keep talking? “I thought you found me too chatty,” the speedster teased… though it faltered at how Silver’s shoulders pulled up, the other becoming smaller and smaller by the second. “I’m not hurting you, am I?” he inquired next, though Silver immediately shook his head.

“Not at all-! …It feels nice.”

“That’s good. Perhaps you’d… like to sit down?”

“Hmh,” was the approximate response, Sonic carefully guiding Silver into sitting as he flopped down as well. With some careful movements, the speedster could direct Silver to rest against his chest, just barely…

The way Silver sunk against it made the psychic look only more droopy.

And the only conclusion Sonic could draw based on that was that Silver seemed oddly distraught by the fact Sonic would leave soon.

“I’m going to miss being here,” the speedster piped up- and Silver flinched.

“Oh… Why?”

“I’ve been having a great time! You’ve been so kind to me. And all your friends too, and this world is gorgeous, and we’ve experienced so much… It’ll always be happy memories to me.”

Happy memories, and a realisation. Clumsily Sonic cleared his throat, the song of the helpless joy in his chest having become rather stifled and muted with Silver’s sadness. Instead sympathy and worry alike oozed in there, willing him to talk about what was wrong with Silver… The other had seemed so happy just now. Almost oddly so, the more Sonic thought about it.

But Sonic frowned, too. Come on, he urged himself. He had to say something, anything…! “You know,” that became, “I’ve been… thinking, I guess…”

Silver kept very quiet.

Sonic found himself rather unsure how to best continue talking with this complete lack of engagement.

“I hope you had fun as well,” the speedster flapped out first, and the psychic promptly flinched once more.

“Yes! I mean- No! I mean-! Not fun. I don’t have fun. But hanging out with you was… really nice.” Quietly Silver pulled his knees against his chest. “I’m… going to miss it. I think.”

Sonic’s ears shot right up.

With gentle movements he ran his hands through his friend’s fur, fighting to keep his voice carefully neutral amidst this golden opportunity. “Silver… why don’t you come along to the past with me?” he spoke up, heart fluttering at the idea. “Then we can hang out together more!”

…The more Sonic spoke, the more Silver froze.

“What do you mean,” got whispered out, lowly.

Sonic’s enthusiasm, roared up into a raging fire, found itself doused just as quickly. Silver sat against him like his body was made of stone, unmoving except for the tremble in his quills… “Well… I think you’re sad. And seeing you so happy just now was really nice, but I wonder if you were sad then too, and just hiding it,” the speedster honestly responded. “You look like you’re sad now, at least. And I think it’s because I’ll be leaving tomorrow. Right?”

Some mumbles were his response, Silver’s eyes darting to Sonic’s face and staring just as strangely intensely as he had before. Even stronger than how he usually regarded Sonic. “…It’ll just be weird,” the psychic eventually sighed… though his head shook so firmly it made the grass around them rustle. “But you gotta be back there! With all your friends. They need you, Sonic. The whole world needs you.”

Sonic wondered whether Silver needed him as well.

And whether he needed Silver.

For the latter, he didn’t have an answer. Nor did he for the former, as he mulled that over next. Would Silver be alright, if Sonic left for the past tomorrow and they’d meet each other again at a next crisis, whenever it would occur? Somehow, Sonic couldn’t shake the feeling Silver wouldn’t be. Sure, the other had friends here in the future, and a place to live and clearly ample things he concerned himself with, but…

Perhaps that was the problem. No matter how small or large or important or insignificant an issue, Silver would put it on his own shoulders, alongside the millions of other small, large, important, or insignificant issues he searched for every day.

“There’s more people in the world than just me who keep an eye on things. And it’s the same here,” Sonic hummed… though, based on how Silver scoffed, the psychic clearly didn’t share that sentiment. With a little laugh Sonic smoothed out his pal’s grey fur. “Remember how I said you’re not alone? I know you’re the world’s most powerful psychic, but surely things won’t immediately go amiss if you’re not around for a few days. You’re also just one person, Silver. The bravest and strongest and smartest and most caring person this entire era will ever have, of that I’m sure, but the world is so big, I-”

“But that just means I need to do more,” Silver interrupted, spines pressing into Sonic’s skin as the psychic began bristling. “I- I can’t go with you. I shouldn’t. I mustn’t. There’s so much that I have to do in this era! Wouldn’t it be absolutely, utterly heinous if I just started lollygagging around in yours because I want to? I’d… I’d be an awful person.”

“It’s not lollygagging. And you could never be awful,” Sonic did his best to protest, though he might as well have been saying as such to a brick wall. In his arms, Silver tensed only more…

“I’ve got far too many responsibilities here. I need to make sure the entire world doesn’t end!” got spat out next, Silver’s voice rising with every word. “What if Eggman Nega comes back and he goes straight here and starts razing the city down, or the entire country? Or what if GUN decides to take out their anger about the Emerald on innocent citizens? Or if there’s another robot invasion? So many things can go wrong! And I know that I can’t know, you said that, but I need to be here for them, and-! And you! You can’t be paying attention to me in the past! You need to fight Eggman! And tell your friends you’re okay! You can’t have me there! We… We got our responsibilities, and they’re not in the same era. I shouldn’t just demand your-!”

Sonic winced as his friend’s voice hitched. “…Never mind,” got mumbled out after, though. “You said only I can decide what I want, and what I want is for things to be… like this. Really.”

A cold quiet fell over the pond as Silver’s words echoed away.

He looked so lost. That was the first thing Sonic’s mind whispered, as golden eyes stared at him with a desperation Sonic could drown in if he looked too long.

The second thing it whispered was that Silver’s words didn’t in the slightest sound like the psychic was actually convinced this was what he wanted.

And the third was that all these frights and fears and horrors inside Silver left very little room for Sonic, and his crush.

“Oh, Silver. I’m so sorry,” Sonic murmured, wrapping an arm around the other’s shoulder and pulling him close. Silver’s head tucked underneath Sonic’s chin as the psychic drew a rasping breath, Sonic rocking lightly to and fro like how he’d done sometimes with Tails when they’d both been younger and the little fox cub had been startled by a thunderstorm or something of that kind. It soothed the speedster himself too, as his mind whirred into overdrive. He and Silver hadn’t gotten as far as he’d wanted at the docks when it came to this discussion… and Sonic knew very well just words and assurances wouldn’t change Silver’s mind. No, his pal was far too stubborn for that, and Sonic bitterly smiled at just how much he liked that about Silver.

…And pushing Sonic’s feelings onto the psychic surely would make all his turmoil so much worse, if this was how he felt.

With a wary frown forming on Sonic’s face, the speedster wracked his brain. He couldn’t just leave here and let everything end on this note, and leave Silver to deal with all this on his own. But if so many of Silver’s problems found themselves given life through Sonic not being in the past…

 “How’s this sound,” the speedster spoke up, the words slipping past his lips like leaves in a slow brook: unwilling, but unable to stop themselves from being taken wherever the brook ran to. “I’ll go back to the past tomorrow, check what Eggman has been up to and stop him, go to my friends… and when I’m sure there’s nothing going on, I’ll come visit you again.”

A little tremble spilled over Silver’s body. “That… I don’t want that. I can’t ask that of you.”

“You’re not asking, I’m offering,” Sonic winked back. “And when there’s a crisis that threatens the past before I’m done with that, you come to me, and I’ll help you. So not goodbye forever, just a… see-you-later.”

And he could be okay with that.

He would be, for Silver’s sake.

Against him Silver just sat, small and quiet and merely humming at Sonic’s gentle murmurs and the final caress over his mane. “There we go. All smooth again,” the speedster determined, leaning backwards to shoot his friend a smile. Golden eyes peeked over for just a second, Silver merely shrugged…

“Chao?” quietly resounded beside them. Periwinkle stared with huge eyes as Sonic turned to look at it, the creature’s orb morphing into a bothered spiral from where it sat huddled away in the grass.

“Hey, li’l one,” Sonic smiled, patting the ground until Periwinkle came closer. With a coo the Chao scrabbled at Silver’s knees, the psychic’s head rearing up slowly and one hand curling around its body before tugging Periwinkle against a grey chest. With another sad noise Periwinkle nuzzled its head against Silver’s mane, peeking at Sonic with a questioning gaze.

He didn’t know what to do either, Sonic mouthed to it. Silver sat so stiffly and despondently… “Hey,” the speedster smiled. “What can I do to help you? Or do you want some time alone, to get your thoughts in order? Think about what it is you really want?”

…Silver’s head shook no, just a single time. But then his entire body jerked up, wary golden eyes snapping to Sonic’s like lightning. “Do you want to?”

“Not if you want me to stay with you-”

“No, no, it’s fine.” Already Silver shuffled away before Sonic could tell him to not do so, a chilly breeze striking Sonic’s chest. “Don’t let me keep you,” Silver altogether urged next, face sunken into his familiar frown once again and Periwinkle all but disappearing into his puffed-up mane.

Sonic swallowed… before reaching out to stroke over drooping grey quills. “Silver, you’re allowed to want things sometimes. Things that are more than keeping everyone else safe.”

But even if Silver’s forehead pressed into Sonic’s palm so yearningly, the psychic’s expression had yet to look less lost and small. “Go ahead,” got murmured out, a gentle brush of psychokinesis lifting Sonic to his feet. “I’ll be okay.”

Sonic doubted that, quite a bit. But he did know for sure that Silver’s heels would be digging further and further into the ground the more he prodded, and thus the speedster shot Silver one final look full of fondness before getting up and turning away.

It fell into a frown of deep concern once he was sure he’d left Silver’s field of vision.

“Oh dear,” Sonic hummed in lieu of a stronger choice of words, helplessly running a hand over his face. His feet found themselves wandering in the direction of the fancy path and the lake, Sonic dragging himself past the draping flowers on endless bushes and underneath wild branches jutting out from unkempt trees left and right until he walked on gravel once again. With every crunching step, his heart grew heavier.

It bled for Silver.

“But you’re not going to change your mind, are you? Not so easily,” the speedster mumbled. “You want me to go home, because you think that’s what’s supposed to happen for the sake of everyone else.” And sure, Sonic could imagine very well that Eggman would have caused trouble in the past, and that his friends would have been quite worried, and he readily had to concede he didn’t know enough about time-travelling with Chaos Control to say anything about when he would arrive and what the state of the past would be…

With a groan Sonic buried his head in both hands next. A small part of him did agree with Silver… but the far larger part of him that knew everything would turn out okay somehow would never be enough to convince the psychic to be less stringent. And Sonic dreaded to think about what would happen if he insisted to Silver he could stay here in the future longer, or that it really was okay for the two of them to go to the past…

That acceptance would have to come from Silver, and Silver alone.

…But perhaps Sonic could help it along a little bit.

A flutter of hope went through the speedster, his steps growing just a tad lighter. And, the realisation that made him perk up entirely came immediately after, what if he combined two purposes in his help? What if he could show Silver that everything would be okay, and how Sonic felt?

The further Sonic trekked, the closed he’d gotten to the main lake that Chao Lake Zone had been named after. Also here, bushes of flowers and trees with Chao fruits sprawled out galore, though far more well-kept ones than where Silver’s Chao lived. With how high they reached, they provided Sonic ample privacy as he trudged to the lake’s edge and frowned at his reflection, that promptly copied the movement. What could such a thing be, though?

An answer took its time to come to the speedster. But he had time aplenty; he’d be back at Silver’s side in seconds once he’d gotten his thoughts in order. With a light gaze and a bittersweet heart Sonic looked around, mulling and pondering…

And as Sonic’s eyes fell on a small stem with a few red rose buds on it, halfway across the lake, he knew he’d found his solution.

Chapter Text

With the afternoon slowly having furthered into evening, Sonic praised himself lucky that the big crowds in Chao Lake Zone had mostly left as he dug out the small rose from the ground.

Carefully he cradled the clump of dirt its roots were in, kicking the hole he’d created shut with his shoe. With his head raised up confidently to deter comments from any stragglers the speedster set off, making a quick stop by some trees to grab some Chao fruits as well, before diverting off the path and wringing his way past bushes oozing with flowers once again.

Two loud sneezes in rapid succession followed once he did that, and Sonic blinked blearily; with his hands full with the rose and his arms furthermore overflowing with fruits, he couldn’t rub them.

…And he couldn’t just come waltzing in with his gift and plunk it in Silver’s hands and have that be the end of it, could he?

“I’ll be right back,” Sonic murmured as he crouched down and carefully placed the rose behind a tree trunk. It gave a bit of room in his arms to carry the Chao fruits, though Sonic figured he made a teetering, stumbling appearance of a hedgehog still with how they tumbled around in his grasp underneath his teary eyes. Not exactly the confident, suave angle he wanted to go for, but it’d have to do. “Silver,” the speedster rasped out once he drew near the little pond again. “Can you give me a hand?”

On the grass, multiple Chao in a rainbow of different colours shot upright. Underneath their movements they revealed grey fur, that shifted as well. “Oh… Sonic,” Silver murmured, turning onto his side, and promptly blinking. “What’s all that?”

“Some fruits for your Chao. Thought it’d be nice if we could give them some,” Sonic explained as the psychic scrambled up and came right closer. Cyan coated everything and lifted all the fruits up, the speedster heaving in relief as he could dig his tissues out of his quills and blow his nose. “I’m fine,” he smiled at the worried, still-dour look Silver sent his way. “Just the flowers. Look, your Chao all seem pretty interested.”

Indeed, Silver’s crowd of pets came promptly looming closer, a dozen pairs of eyes regarding the fruit with a hunger most primal. “You shouldn’t have. I spoil them enough as it is sometimes,” Silver protested… but his psychokinesis had long scattered the fruits around, coos of delight following and hearts forming over the creatures’ heads aplenty as the Chao dug right in.

“Nonsense! Chao need every bit of attention and love in the world,” Sonic teased, giving Silver a playful knock with his elbow. “Besides, they seem pretty food-motivated.”

“I don’t think they got that from me,” Silver pondered, which Sonic was immediately down to believe. Silver’s further musings about how these Chao were not bound to a particular owner and therefore likely to pick up traits from everyone who came around less so, because Sonic was rather sure Silver was the only person to ever grace this untouched stretch of land. But at least the psychic was talking again, green eyes scrutinising him discreetly. Silver still looked a bit sad and crumpled, but at least… calmer.

A soft silence fell.

Sonic broke it first; Silver had implored him to, after all. “Hey,” the speedster murmured, shooting his pal a warm look. “You feeling better?”

“…I don’t know.”

“That’s okay. Feelings can be confusing sometimes.”

A helpless shrug followed at that, Silver’s ears drooping again… and that just wouldn’t do. Sonic’s helpless joy went right back to its song, intermixed with tenderness and a wish to comfort. “I’ve got something for you,” Sonic carefully measured his words. “Wait here.”

Silver’s mouth shot open, and Sonic was sure a protest came out, which he conveniently could not hear because he’d already darted away to go snatch the rose. “Let’s do this,” he mumbled to it as he curled his hands around the clump of dirt again, and turned around to show Silver-

Who stumbled right into a halt from where he’d been marching after Sonic.

“…Whoa,” the psychic piped up first. “That’s a lovely rose. Where’d you get it?”

“I technically stole it,” Sonic laughed.

Golden eyes stared.

For a very long time.

…Until they creased at the edges, and a smile formed on Silver’s lips. That radiant smile, small but there and so much like those smiles Silver smiled that Sonic had gotten so used to. “Sonic, that’s illegal,” the psychic snickered back under his breath, a firm shake of his head following as his voice increased into its usual steady volume once more. “Sure, there’s lots of flowers here, but what would the park do if everyone just went and took away plants like that?!”

“And yet you think it’s funny too,” Sonic grinned back. And indeed, Silver looked calmer than he had ever since the air around them had changed and the psychic become so sorrowful.

A little headbutt against his cheek followed as Silver stepped closer still. “I think it’s brazen.”

“Oh, certainly. But, you know… I wanted to give you a gift. And tell you something important.”

Against him, Silver promptly tensed.

“Important,” got echoed, a grey brow sinking into a guarded frown as the psychic shrunk away again. Talking about his issues wasn’t Silver’s forte, Sonic remembered well enough. But the speedster smiled, lowering the rose and spinning it around in his hands.

“Look at the rose. It’s a bit of a tiny thing, isn’t it?”

“Not at all! It’s gorgeous!” the prompt protest came. Gloved fingers trailed over the little buds hanging from small twigs, Silver’s gaze softening. “Sure, it’s a young plant, but it’s growing well. This is a strong one.”

With a wink Sonic regarded the rose also. “I think you’re right. See, its buds are starting to open up just a bit.”

“Hmhm. It’s a bit early in spring still for roses to start blooming. But they should be coming up really soon.”

“You know,” the speedster mused, “you seem pretty sure about what the rose is doing.”

Silver studied him for a moment, before averting his eyes and trailing his fingers over his gift with hesitant movements. “Well... It’s a plant. They do what they want. Which is, you know, surviving and propagating, mostly…”

“But they don’t always.”

Silver’s whole body tensed in an instant.

A deep, deep sadness overcame his face in the smallest creases around his eyes, grey shoulders hitching right up to his cheeks. “Sometimes it doesn’t work out, and they don’t survive,” Sonic continued, with a melancholic little smile on his face. “Such is life, I’m afraid. Everything has its end.”

“…Yeah,” followed, in the quietest of mumbles. “Plants die. Especially if you don’t care for them well.”

“Have you ever cared poorly for a plant, you think?” Sonic inquired… before hiding behind the rose with a jolt and a laugh as Silver’s head snapped right up, and any trace of grief and sadness had disappeared in favour of burning, lethal affrontedness.

“Of course I haven’t! It’s a living thing, you gotta look after it!” the psychic spat back, hands balling and quills flaring right up and even a glimpse of teeth gleaming between his lips. All the Chao around them either squeaked in fright and scrambled away, or cooed eagerly as exclamation marks formed above their heads and they stared like the two hedgehogs could throw hands at any moments. Perhaps some of Silver’s pets took more after him than he realised, Sonic snickered to himself as he hummed soothingly to the psychic before he’d get socked in the face for his transgressions.

“Let me finish, let me finish. The thing is, I know you always try your absolute hardest to do so,” he responded, winking at that withering glare. How he adored Silver’s passion, and how the other’s seriousness made his heart flutter… but he had a point to make here too. “And that’s why I think both this rose and the whole world will be fine.”

Silver startled.

“…What does the world have to do with it?” followed hesitantly, after a long pause. “The world isn’t a rose.”

With a broad gesture to the garden around, Sonic smiled. “It’s not, no. But just like a plant, the world grows. It matures and it blossoms, but sometimes things can go wrong. And that’s where you come in, to make things right again. And you do it so well, that it can remain blossoming for ages and ages. Because it’s you who is looking after it.”

“...Huh.” Golden eyes blinked. “Because I do that? That’s a lot of faith you put in me.”

“And none of it is misplaced,” Sonic grinned back. After all, based on what he’d heard from everybody and Silver himself too, the psychic was all over making sure the world was kept safe and protected.

And yet, and yet…

“But also… Silver, look around us,” the speedster continued more softly. “There’s far more plants here than this rose, and nobody looks after them, do they? We’re in the wild part of the park.” And indeed, as Sonic gestured once again, his eyes fell on all the foliage full of blossoms and flowers that stretched out as far as he could see. His nose itched at the mere sight.

Silver’s eyes darted around too, ears giving slow twitches. “I mean, I water stuff sometimes when there’s a heatwave or so, but otherwise… it manages by itself, yes.”

Sonic leaned just a bit straighter upwards, for he had Silver right where he wanted him.

Green eyes met gold. “Do you think the world can manage by itself?”

Silver flinched.

And stayed quiet for a long time.

Gently Sonic waited, as Silver’s eyes darted between him and the rose and the pond and the trees and the sky. He looked so lost like that… “Not if something bad happens,” got whispered out eventually, the psychic’s face falling. “But… You said I can’t know when that does. If it does. It’s the same with plants. Sometimes they suddenly have bugs and you’ve got no idea where they came from.”

“And then you step in and make things right again. And like I said: you do it marvellously.” Fondly Sonic reached out, giving his frowning pal a light knock with his elbow to ease out that sad look. Something more tender blossomed onto Silver’s face as their furs brushed past each other, he was sure of it…

And with the other listening and looking, Sonic jostled the rose anew. “But tell me, Silver. Do you spend every single moment of your time fretting about whether there might be something that could go wrong with your plants?”

Silver blinked, head tipping to the side. “...Every single moment?” the psychic echoed, rubbing his chin. “That’s a lot of moments. Won’t that be tiring?”

Sonic just smiled, and waited.

And eventually, his friend’s expression shifted towards being very, very pondering. “You mean something with that,” Silver concluded like it was a very big thing, the rose stared at again. Silver’s gaze moved to Sonic next, as the silence stretched out between them…

“...Are you saying that what I’m doing is… tiring? For me?” eventually followed, in the quietest of whispers.

“That I am,” Sonic nodded back, with a wink and an inner victory dance. “And, Silver, of course a plant isn’t the same as the whole world. Lot more at stake for the latter. But you do spend a lot of time worrying about bad things that could happen, right? That’s the whole reason you don’t want to live in an apartment and all that.”

“But you said I should live up to bad things happily.”

“Well, I said you can’t know if bad things will happen, let alone when.” Fondly Sonic trailed his hand past the rose’s leaves also. “But I think is that you will know when they do. It’s all around us. You’ve got the wind and the Emeralds, GUN’s keeping an eye on things-”

“Poorly, but go on.”

“-and there is a guard in your city,” Sonic snorted. “And sure, they’re not you. You’re the most powerful psychic in the world, you said so yourself. But should anything bad occur… You’re not negligent for not spending every single second of your time prepared for that. Just like how you’re not negligent for not spending every single second fighting to stop any ailment a plant could get. Do you see what I mean?”

“…No.”

Sonic couldn’t help but laugh adoringly.

Beside him Silver took to floating, face sunken in a deep, deep frown. His eyes darted between Sonic and the rose again, and the Chao munching away on their fruits or studying them back, and the park as a whole, and Sonic could just hear the cogs whir in his head without even needing to perk up his ears…

“So… What you’re saying is… I do too much for the world? I spend too many moments prepared for bad things?” followed eventually, though Silver immediately tensed. “But I want to!”

“It’s not that you do too much, it’s that you do too little for yourself. And that makes me sad to see,” Sonic murmured. “Remember what Eliza said, and me too? You can want things sometimes that are just for you. Not for the sake of the whole world.”

“Wanting things- But isn’t that selfish?” Slowly Silver’s knees pulled up to his chest, face falling in a hesitant frown. “Look at me, Sonic. I can do things no other person can. If I don’t step up for the world, who will? And I can do it. I can keep it safe. Don’t you think that, because I can… I must? I must do everything I can to protect it, because protecting the world is so much more important than anything I could ever want? Anything I could ever want will only take away from me protecting the world. Or it could make things worse, like with that apartment.”

Sonic pondered for a moment. Silver kept pushing himself past his limits again and again, that much was obvious. Also obvious was that he did very little to soothe his soul amidst all the responsibilities he’d placed on his own shoulders. Those topics were deeply intertwined, but Sonic knew very well that simply disagreeing with Silver’s statement wouldn’t make the other see…

“You can’t give people rings if you’ve got none of them yourself. And you can’t get rings to give to others if you’re not caring for yourself well. But to care for yourself, you yourself need rings, to get food and stuff,” the speedster murmured out, every new word placed carefully after the former. “You see what I mean?”

Silver didn’t, if his deeply wrinkled brow and the little loops he drew in the air with his finger were any indication. Though, the more he fidgeted, the more his expression did lighten… “So to give other people rings… I need to keep some for myself first?”

“Exactly! And the rings are just a metaphor. As is the rose,” Sonic deemed it wise to immediately make clear, because he knew Silver. The fact he did was one that made the song of helpless joy inside him stir up into a full orchestra. Silver simply was a nice person to know.

“So if I,” the psychic mumbled with more hand movements, “want to… care… for everyone, and for the world, then I… gotta… care for myself… first? By… not…?”

“By not always pushing away your own wants in favour of the world. If you care for yourself first, you can care for everyone else next. And by not putting all that responsibility on your own shoulders. There’s so many people here who can step in, I promise.”

“…Is it normal to immediately feel like you want to explode when you hear that?”

Sonic could barely choke down a laugh in time. In front of him Silver floated, ears giving displeased wriggles and his face stuck in that leer once again. “Changing your mind is not easy,” the speedster chuckled. “But the rose knows what to do to flourish. And all the good in the world, from so many people who want to do well, will keep it safe. And when the rose falls ill or when your nemesis comes back, you step in and help and you will succeed, but you don’t need to spend every single moment of your time ready for that. And all those moments that not fretting frees up, you can spend on caring for yourself, so that you’re ready for whatever may come in the future.”

…And the more he spoke, the more Silver nodded.

Slowly, and quietly, and hesitantly, with a face stuck in an expression of worry and uncertainty, but…

He listened.

And a quiet: “Maybe I can try,” made Sonic beam like the sun.

Silver dropped to the ground ever so slowly, pulling up his gloves by his bracelets and fiddling with his fingers and altogether looking everywhere but Sonic. But as Sonic waited, slowly the other’s gaze moved to him once again… “Let’s start now,” the speedster urged as their eyes met. They had to keep this momentum going. “Nothing really big, I promise. But you know what to do right in here.”

He gladly grabbed the opportunity to run his free hand over Silver’s chest, like he had in the Special Stage too. How soft and silky it was…

“In my mane?” Silver meanwhile inquired, peering down at his chest. “Sure, if you say so.”

“I… meant in your heart,” Sonic had to snort back.

“That’s a bit deeper in my body, silly.”

Sonic would have responded with something witty, were it not that Silver’s hand curled over his and pressed it right into that warmth, and with it made it a bit hard to say anything at all. “What I want. What I want,” the other mumbled. “What I want, that’s more than keeping the world safe. I… You…”

And Sonic’s ears perked up and eyes widened and he could only stare, as Silver sighed before peering up at him so helplessly.

“To see you again,” the psychic whispered out.

This was it.

The realisation struck Sonic like lightning. This moment, right here, this was his chance to tell Silver…! With his hand rubbing gentle circles into Silver’s chest the speedster nodded. “You know, that’s exactly what I want too-” he began responding…

Before yelping, as Silver jolted and his head snapped fully upwards and his fingers dug into Sonic’s far more tautly.

“Wait, Sonic!” got gasped out, golden eyes widening. “I got it!!”

...Anything Sonic had prepared to say fell away into a stunned stupor at that sudden cry.

“Yeah...?” was the first thing he managed to bring out. Silver’s eyes took to shining, eagerness and relief flooding onto his face in equal measures…

“Yes! Because, we’ve both got our responsibilities, right?” his pal burst loose, heartbeat hammering away under Sonic’s hand. “Even if we want to see each other again, Eggman is plotting something. We know he is. And in this era I’m still working on tearing down all his remnants, and my nemesis could come back and I’d have to fight him. But, when you’ve defeated Eggman and we know everything will be okay for a while… you can come here again!”

With every word spoken, Silver’s voice rose, until he was all but yelling. It made it quite a bit harder for Sonic to focus on what he was actually being told. “Visit you again in the future?” he asked to be sure, a vehement nodding following.

“Yes! Eggman willl need time to rebuild his army, and you can go to your friends and tell them where you’ll be heading so they don’t be worried! And then we can-!”

As eagerly as Silver had talked, as suddenly he trailed off into nothing.

“...We can?” Sonic urged, because he could have sworn Silver’s silence was a bashful one.

Cool fingers trailed over Sonic’s hand. “We can… explore the future more. And I can show you more places that I like, because you said you wanted to see those. And just… spend time together,” the psychic continued quietly, eyes trained on his shoes. The other’s face looked just a bit rosy in the light of the setting sun, Sonic could have sworn…

But before he could ask, golden eyes moved up slowly to meet Sonic’s, and Sonic could have drowned in their intensity. “That’s what I want,” Silver whispered. “That our worlds will be kept safe, by us both, but we’ll also meet again.”

…Jumping his feelings onto Silver now would be an abysmally bad idea.

Sonic had to force down a grimace at the mere thought of telling his friend what he’d realised today. Silver had made up his mind, quite strongly at that, and then Sonic would come thundering at him with the sudden revelation of his crush? His pal would not take it well, the speedster knew for certain.

So close in front of him, Silver regarded him still with that look like he was the only person on the planet. “I think that’s a marvellous idea!” Sonic quickly spoke up, forcing a smile onto his lips. The mere fact Silver considered they could meet again one day without the world being about to end was nothing short of a miracle… and, as Sonic thought it over, it was a decent compromise. Silver’s wish for their eras to be kept safe was contained in it, but they would see each other again too.

And yet, disappointment clawed at Sonic still. The song inside him fluttered and pleaded, begging him to do something, anything to show Silver how he felt, even if he couldn’t say it forwardly…!

And with his mind whirring an idea into existence, Sonic smiled back.

Silver startled as the speedster, with rose in hand and the other pulling out of Silver’s hold, dropped gracefully to one knee.

“I want to propose something,” Sonic quipped, that one word oozing with emphasis and accentuated with a wink. “I’ll go back to the past and defeat Eggman, tell all my friends I’m okay, and once that’s over and done, I will come back to this era immediately afterwards. I won’t leave you waiting.”

Silver stayed quiet for a long time again.

Until slowly, ever so slowly, he nodded.

“I think… I would really like that. But is that not too soon?”

“It could never be too soon to see you again,” Sonic murmured. “So I promise.”

“Promise…”

Silver stared at his hand, and then at Sonic’s, and the speedster blinked as his pal dropped to both knees.

The psychic’s hand curled into a fist, with the pinkie extended.

“Unbreakable promise,” got whispered as Silver held it up. “Can we… Is that okay? Is this an unbreakable promise kind of situation?”

Sonic had curled his own pinkie around it before a second could pass.

And that was how they leaned on the grass, their fingers intertwined as Sonic breathed slowly and calmly so Silver could follow his example. He could have peace with this arrangement. He would, for Silver’s sake. And the speedster had to admit he could see it work out: he would fight Eggman and give Silver peace of mind, and Silver could learn about Sonic’s feelings after all that was over and done.

“Thank you,” the psychic broke their silence first. “I say it a lot, but… thank you.”

With a fond smile Sonic extended the rose. “Here. Whenever you feel the weight of the world and you think you’re all alone, look at it and remember what I told you, alright?”

“I will.” Carefully Silver’s fingers cradled around the clump of dirt, gloves brushing past Sonic’s and making his hands tingle.

And Sonic could only blink at the way the Chao regarded them both, with mischief galore in their gazes.

“You wanted to get dinner, right? With my rings,” Silver spoke up a while later, psychokinesis nuzzling over the Chao’s heads as coos and giggles followed. “If we just go to the city centre, I’m sure we can find something good. And afterwards, we can go to my hideout so I can put the rose away safely."

“It’s all fine by me. As long as we can spend time together,” Sonic smiled back.

With some more caresses and goodbyes Silver departed from his Chao, Sonic falling into step beside him towards the path and the exit of the park. “Huh. I wonder what was up with them. They were all really sad when I felt sad, but they looked kinda cheeky when we left,” the psychic mulled.

Sonic decided he’d best keep quiet, lest he gave Silver any ideas.

Though, the psychic mercifully seemed a bit too distracted by the rose, that he held like it was the most important thing in the entire world. “Roses are actually really ingenious in how they grow. Their thorns – well, they’re not thorns, they’re actually prickles, but everyone calls them thorns anyway – can hang onto other plants so they can grow more quickly, and thus they can outcompete their neighbours for sun. It’s quite smart! But I think I’ll give her her own sunny spot somewhere, where she’ll get all the sunlight she needs,” got chattered, Silver’s fingers trailing over the prickly stem and Sonic stifling a sigh of relief beside him. How soul-lightening it was, to see his friend happier again.

“It’s a red rose, right? I thought so, but I found it hard to tell because it’s not yet blooming,” he encouraged the talking more, amusement flooding over him at the eager nods that followed.

“It is. You can see it very well in this one bud here.”

“Phew. Good thing it’s not a different coloured-one, heh.”

Golden eyes twinkled. “Was it important that it’s a red one?”

Oh no, Sonic realised. Oh dear. “Uh… Well…”

Except anything he’d wanted to say fell quiet at Silver’s follow-up of: “Red because of the gems of my shoes?”

Sonic didn’t exactly know what to say back to that.

“Uhm,” he managed to get out. “I mean…”

“It’s okay! I think it’s really charming,” Silver interrupted, the softest of purrs reverberating in the air around them. “Blue is my favourite colour, but blue roses are quite rare compared to red ones. You can find them best in arboreta and gardens specifically for roses. But I love red, too! Apples are red, and so are your shoes… You really put a lot of thought into it!”

“More than you know,” Sonic responded helplessly as his joy fluttered helplessly and his thoughts whirled helplessly and he helplessly had very little idea how he would tackle his revelation, because he couldn’t shake the feeling that, the next time he’d come around, just grabbing Silver by the shoulders and yelling that he had a crush would not work.

Fondly Silver trailed his fingers over the rosebuds. “I’ll put her in a pot so that she’s safe and can grow, until she’s strong enough to grow in the ground, and then I’ll replant her. And when the roses are done blooming, I’ll dry every single one of them so they’ll remain forever.”

“Forever… That’s a really long time.”

“Exactly how long I’ll treasure each and every one of them, though.”

“Heh, Silver,” Sonic smiled despite everything. “You know, you seem like a pretty romantic guy at heart. You’ve got pick-up lines up the wazoo.”

“What’s a pick-up line?”

Sonic didn’t exactly know what to say to that either, but it did not matter: he’d begun laughing before he could help it. “What?!” Silver protested, puffing himself right up. “What’s so funny?!”

Telling Silver he couldn’t explain it so easily would be doing his friend a disservice. Thus, Sonic wriggled his ears and pondered, before snapping his finger. “Ah! It’s funny because you’re a romantic guy, but apparently… accidentally. That that’s possible amuses me.”

Golden eyes narrowed, with a playfulness that Sonic had begun seeing ever so slowly these past days compared to Silver’s usual lethal leers. “It’s funny you say that,” got huffed his way, “because red roses are the most romantic rose you can give someone. At least, here in my era. Maybe it’s different in the past.”

Sonic fought to keep his expression straight. “Oh… Really?”

“Uh huh! I guess that makes you an accidentally pretty romantic guy at heart too, huh? So it’s not just me!”

“Oh, you’ve got no idea,” Sonic responded with a snort. Beside him, Silver cradled the rose into one arm, falling silent as well as the sun set further and further into the horizon to their left. The trek back to Silver’s city got spent in silence…

A silence in which golden eyes flicked over to Sonic again and again, grey-furred ears oscillating between drooping and getting clearly forced upright. Every time Silver’s gaze met Sonic’s the speedster smiled, though, and Silver nodded back with the smallest of movements before lightening up a bit. “...I think I figured out what else I want,” the psychic eventually broke the quiet, voice a soft murmur in the meadows and hills around them.

Sonic’s ears flew right up. “Which is?” he implored-

Before squeaking, as a gloved hand curled around his.

“So that you’re close. Like in the Special Stage,” Silver whispered, shoulders sinking and face falling back into that look of hurt, but…

Sonic could have sworn it was intermixed with bittersweet happiness.

And thus he squeezed his hand back in turn, and made himself tall and steady to show Silver everything would be okay, as they walked towards the night before tomorrow.