The day I dreaded would soon be here yet again.

My birthday.

I don't understand, why do they celebrate it when I don't want to? I tell them every year that I don't want to celebrate it. Yet, they force me to, anyways.

Amy says it's because I don't give a reason why. I don't need to give her a reason. I don't want anyone to know the reason.

I sighed and rolled out of bed, walking into the bathroom after grabbing one of Shadow's sweatshirts he had given me once we had started dating and looking at myself in the mirror.

I looked miserable. I really shouldn't stay up until 3 in the morning doodling and, well, crying.

Speaking of crying, once I had looked at my phone and realised that today was the dreaded day, I fell to my knees and cried. I'm getting tired of crying.

Chaos, let this godforsaken day be over with in a hurry.

"Sonic? You okay?" I heard Shadow's concerned voice outside of the bathroom door.

I stopped crying and wiped the tears that continued to fall.

"I-... I don't know…" I responded, throwing on the sweatshirt and opening the door from where I sat on the floor.

His face fell as he sat beside me. He knew I hated my birthday. And he knew the reason why.

He hugged me, putting my face in his shoulder. I hugged him back, letting myself sob out loud. He whispered sweet nothings into my sensitive ear as he rocked us back and forth. I felt his hand pat down my messy quills.

After a while, I had become quiet, sinking into his warmth and scent and falling in and out of sleep.

We sat in silence for Chaos knows how long before I had heard the doorbell ring. We both stood up and gave each other warm smiles. He wiped my tears and held my face in his hand.

Placing a kiss on my nose he whispered, "You have to stay strong for me today. I'll take you away when no one's paying attention, okay?"

"Okay." I managed to respond before Amy started to spam the doorbell. I reluctantly ran to the door and opened it.

"Good morning, birthday boy!" She greeted me, smiling.

"Are you ready to party?" She said, oblivious to my very visible flinch when she called me 'birthday boy.'

I took a deep breath and sighed.

"No, I'm not ready to party Amy, I've already told you a million times I don't want to celebrate my birthday!" I yelled, more harsher than I intended.

Amy turned to me.

"What don't you like about your birthday? Everyone likes their birthday! And those who don't have a reason, unlike you. " She responded so innocently.

"I have a reason, I just don't want to tell you what it is." I walked into the kitchen and opened the pantry, grabbing a bagel and eating it on the spot.

"Come on, Sonic! Tell me your excuse and I'll call the party off, deal?" Amy followed me into the kitchen.

"I just want to be left alone, is that too much for me to ask?" I leaned against the counter.

"But why!" She whined, attempting to fool me with her puppy dog eyes. I just glared into them.

I sighed, trying to keep myself from saying something I would regret.

"Of all the days you don't smile, you chose the one everyone else would be smiling on the most." She said as she walked away and began to set up for the party. It was silent in the kitchen as I finished my bagel.

"Ames, if you want to have a party, set one up in your own house, not mine." I walked into the living room, where she had already started putting up birthday banners.

"Sonic, whatever bothers you about your birthday, you need to forget. I'm setting up this party and you are going to enjoy it!" She said, so innocently.

I hated her this time of year.

I walked into the backyard, where Shadow and Cream were playing with the flowers. I sat beside Shadow and picked up a flower.

"Did you get to her this time?" He said to me, ignoring Cream's confused look as she tried to understand what we were saying.

"Not even close." I responded, staring down at the flower I held in my hand.

"I need to talk to her then. I can't let you have a meltdown like that again, it breaks my heart too much." He put a flower crown on my head as he stood up and began to walk inside.

"Don't." I grabbed his ankle gently, I didn't want to trip him. "Just let her do what she wants."

He sighed and sat back down next to me, his hand on mine.

"We'll just escape later, anyways."

\\

As more and more friends started to arrive, I distanced myself further and further. Even to the point where I thought of taking a plate of food and hiding in my room with Shadow. Instead, I sat at the kitchen table and stared at the plate of food. Shadow sat beside me, probably waiting for the right time to disappear.

"You don't look so good, Big Blue. Something bothering you?" Rouge sat on the other side of me, offering me a red solo cup which was probably filled with some sort of alcohol.

"My birthday is the thing bothering me." I mumbled, taking the cup and sniffing it. Yeah, definitely alcohol. I took a sip from it anyways, anything to numb the pain. But Shadow took it from me before I could take another sip and poured it out in the sink.

"Aw, come on, you party pooper! At least let him have a little fun.~" Rouge taunted Shadow, and secretly placed something in his hands. As she flew away, she winked at the both of us.

Shadow gently grabbed my arm and led me to the guest room. He opened the window and climbed out, and I followed suit.

"What did she give you?" I asked as we were walking along the outskirts of the forest.

"Her guest room." He smirked at me. I felt my face turn red as I looked at the ground.

"She gave us the key to her house so that we could get away from the party. She's gonna make sure that no one notices you're gone." He walked me up the front steps and used the key he was given to unlock the door.

"Oh, okay…" I mumbled. Damn my dirty thoughts...

He led me inside and sat me on the couch before he went to the kitchen. He returned a few moments later with two cups of, from what I could smell, was tea. He placed them on the coffee table in front of us as he sat down next to me. I immediately put my head on his shoulder as he wrapped his arm around me.

"Anything in particular you want to do?" He put his hand underneath the sweatshirt and put his warm hand on my lower back, making me shiver.

"I don't care what we do, I just want to be with you." I looked up at him. As long as he makes me forget it's my birthday, I'm up for whatever he wants to do.

"I had one thing in mind, but Rouge wouldn't like it.~" He smirked at me. I felt his hand slowly move upwards to that sensitive spot in between the spikes on my back. I dug my face into his neck and threw one of my legs onto the other side of him. I shivered and accidentally let out a breathy moan as his fingers brushed over that spot. I bit my bottom lip afterwards as I felt my face heat up even more.

"Well that's a noise I've never heard before." He smirked, tugging at the bottom of the sweatshirt. I lifted my arms to let him take it off of me and throw it on the floor.

"You wanna hear more~?" I whispered into his ear, biting it gently. I tugged at his shirt, wanting him to take it off as well. Instead, his hands gripped my thighs and hips as he lifted me up and carried me into what I believe was the guest room. He kept biting at my neck on the way there, releasing more breathy moans from my throat.

I felt the cold plushness of the bed on my back and sank into it as Shadow pressed me against it. He kept his mouth biting at my throat as I felt him take off my shorts. He removed his mouth from my throat and gave me a hunger-filled kiss when I heard them drop to the floor. A moan or two escaped as he bit my lip and started exploring my mouth with his tongue. I wrapped my arms around the back of his head and brought him closer, our tongues and lips dancing with each other.

He pulled away for a short moment to take off his shirt, but before he could put his lips back onto mine, I pushed him away by putting my hand against his furry chest.

"L-let's not…" I said, looking towards the side to avoid eye contact with the hedgehog above me. "Didn't you say that Rouge wouldn't like it if we did?"

"She honestly doesn't care, unless we don't clean up afterwards." He put his hand on my cheek, and I reluctantly looked into those lust-filled, ruby-red eyes.

"Come on, love, don't you want to forget?" I leaned into his touch and sighed.

"It-... I just feel… feel wrong about doing this. I would rather do… this… In my own bed… y'know…?" It was half of the truth. The other half was that I was afraid. I was afraid, and or because I had never been that intimate with someone before. I wanted that first time to be with Shadow, but not right here and not right now! I wanted to wait until I felt comfortable.

"S-sorry… I just—"

"No, no, love, I should be sorry. I guess I got carried away…" He got off of me and sat next to me on the bed.

"And I understand where you're coming from, wanting to be somewhere familiar."

"Haha, yeah."

I put my head in his lap and all was quiet for a while before I realised something and I sat back up.

"How the hell are we supposed to explain these hickeys in the morning?!"

\\

It was about 3 am, and Shadow and I had fallen asleep watching some dumb show on Netflix. Something about a girl who uses VCR tapes as a long-ass suicide note…? (We had also completely forgotten about the tea.)

Anyways, Shadow had woken me up suddenly by shaking me.

"What the hell…?" I groaned, turning to look at him.

"We need to get back to our house. So that we can act like we were there the whole time?" He whispered, throwing me my shorts. I had Shadow go and retrieve the sweatshirt for me before we watched the dumb show. I stood up, putting on my shorts and slipping on my shoes. We silently walked out of the back door, and made our way back to the house.

Once we had gotten there, he unfortunately had to use Chaos Control to teleport us into our shared bedroom because the window was locked.

The reason why I said 'unfortunately' was because I nearly puked all over the floor after getting inside. Teleporting, in general, just makes me nauseous.

After we had gotten rid of my nausea, we laid on the bed and just… Talked. For the rest of the night. Like we usually do.

He ended up falling asleep at some point but I didn't. I rested my head in his lap and watched the sunrise from my window. And, Chaos, was it worth it.

\\

When the sun had fully risen, I decided to get up and get some breakfast.

Or… not.

The kitchen was trashed. Maybe getting them all drunk was Rouge's way of keeping them from ignoring the fact that Shadow and I were missing.

I looked in the living room, and saw Amy. Just sitting there on the couch.

"You missed the party last night." She said just as I was turning away to go and clean up the kitchen.

"Did you really think I wouldn't notice that you were gone? Rouge's excuses were crap."

I turned around to face her.

"About time you finally noticed that I disappear not even halfway through every birthday party you throw me." I looked at the floor.

"But why'd you run off with Shadow, of all people?" She stood up to face me.

I heard footsteps coming from the hallway. I looked over to see the aforementioned hedgehog walking over to stand next to me.

"Because I…" QUICK, think of a better word other than love that wouldn't reveal your secret relationship with him! "...trust him." Good enough.

"I have a feeling that there's something greater than trust between you two." I turned around and saw Tails standing behind me.

"Not you, too!"

"We just wanna know why you hate celebrating your birthday, that is all." He gave me a warm smile.

"Fine," I growled. "I'll tell y'all when everyone else is here, cleaning up their mess."

"Alrighty!" Amy and Tails both said in unison, Amy texting everyone to come back to the house, Tails starting to clean up.

"Are you sure?" Shadow turned to me with concern lacing his tone.

"I'd rather have everybody hear it at the same time, than to have it passed around being distorted as a rumour. Plus, I don't want to repeat myself."

And all he did was smile at me.

(Lets also thank Chaos she didn't notice the hickeys.)

\\

The house was clean, and everyone was chilling in the living room.

Meanwhile I was in the bathroom, crying, yet again.

"Keep it together, Sonic, you have to keep it together…" I whispered to myself, calming myself down. (Shadow was out in the living room already.) It feels like it's working.

Once I had calmed myself down, I stood up, wiped my tears, and walked into the living room. I walked over and sat beside Shadow, resisting the urge to rest my head on his shoulder.

"So, Sonic, are you gonna tell us why you don't like your birthday?" Amy's voice caused me to flinch.

I took a deep breath, and sighed.

"Yeah."

—

The poor woman was just trying to find a place for her and her child to hide while it was raining so heavily outside.

"Mama, when can we go back home…?" The 4 year old asked his mother, following close behind her as she walked into an alleyway.

"Soon, my birthday boy." She gave her usual response to the question that was asked almost everyday.

"Hey! You!" A loud and booming voice startled the boy and his mother.

"I-I'm sorry! I don't have any money…!" The woman cowered in fear, the large man who that voice belonged to appeared holding what appeared to be a gun.

"Then explain what's on the kids neck." The man held the gun to her. The boy stood frozen in fear.

"Y-you can have it! P-please just don't hurt my child!" The woman sobbed. The man walked over to the boy and held out his hand. The boy just stood frozen.

"G-give him the necklace, Sonic." The woman said to her child.

"No! You told me it was the last piece of the Kin—" The kid began to retort, but was cut short by the woman grabbing the necklace and tearing it off of her kid's neck. She handed it to the man, sobbing as she did so.

"Good girl." The man said before shooting the woman, grabbing the boy, and dragging him screaming and crying bloody murder into the middle of the woods where his kidnapper left him for dead because of how loud he screamed.

Little did the boy know, that his mother never died. And little does the mother know, that her boy never died.

—

I had started to cry halfway through. Shadow patted my back in an attempt to comfort me.

Once I had finished my story through all of the tears, I just stared at the middle of the floor in silence. Tears running like a waterfall down my face.

And then I realised something.

"Holy shit…" I whispered to mostly myself as I turned to Shadow.

"I might just be the Queen's long lost son."