He had quite the hard time breathing.
Then again, he wasn't exactly sure how long he had lost his ability to breathe. Ever since the darkness took him, exactly how he couldn't remember, everything was lost to him except his existence – at least he believed he was still alive. According to instinct, where there was pain, there was a chance that he was still alive.
Unless he was dreaming, which he sincerely doubted, the only other option he could think of at the moment was the idea that he could be dead. As long as he was the Guardian of the Master Emerald, that wasn't an option. He had no choice but to live.
He was trying to wake up, but with all the pain in his chest and his lungs, it hindered but motivated him to wake up all at the same time.
Knuckles wanted to move, just anything more than breathe, but he couldn't: he was just too weak to do so. If it wasn't for the voice that was calling out to him and forcing air down his lungs, he sincerely doubted that he would be questioning is current plane of existence.
Odd, when people normally woke up, there was a welcoming light, but there wasn't, so he began to wonder if the real world atmosphere was just dark or he was losing his battle to stay alive.
He would have to apologize to the angel later on who went through the trouble to keep him there.
"You're not dying on me!"
The first coherent words that his echidna ears could hear made him jolt. It was not in a bad way, just in a manner that he hadn't felt in years. With such a strong surge to the heart, he moved a little, and he could feel it to.
"That's right! You can do it! Just, whatever you do, stay with me, Knuckles!"
He knew that if he died right now, he would have a lot to answer for concerning his friends. Then again, it's not like he was immortal, which was likely the theory on Shadow the Hedgehog.
Odd, it was weird how the voice just said "me" and not "us": he made the assumption right then and there that maybe it was just him and whoever was trying to save his life.
So it could have very well been an angel.
Then again, it was weird how the angel knew his name.
"Come on, Knuckles! Wake up!"
A wave of pain that could be compaired to a few past experiences began to take him, which did so in such a manner that it made him jump. He didn't get up on the account of his weakness, but at least he was sitting up. If someone had not caught him maybe he would have collapsed backward again.
Then again, as reality struck him with everlasting pain, a sense of things becoming familiar started to dawn on him, such as the realization that the lack of light was on the account of a few lit candles.
There was something else that was familiar too: the feel of a gloved hand not only keeping him up, but another of the same hand on his face to keep it from going backward. If his eyes weren't open, he wouldn't have recognized the familiar white fur and cyan eyes that were looking at him with a worry he wasn't accustom to.
Still, even in the darkness, everything started to fall into place concerning his understanding: he knew that an "angel" was here, but what he started to understand was that this angel had nocturnal wings. If it wasn't for her support, he probably wouldn't have been able to reach the clarity that he had right now and realize who was sitting before him, and begin to remember the details of what happened before.
"Rouge?" was all he could immediately think of to say.
"Yes, it's me," she said rather calmly, her worried eyes a polar opposite to her voice and her blushing cheeks, "Are you alright?"
His own purple eyes, that had an element of surprise in them, started to calm down a little, his cheeks becoming almost as red as his own fur.
"Y-Yes," Knuckles replied, stammering a little, "I am… if not sore."
"What do you remember?" Rouge asked.
Now that he was awake to remember, he realized that there was more than he originally thought that he began to remember. It was the details that revolved around how exactly he got to this point in the first place.
In the matter of thinking about it, something else dawned on him too, and that compelled him to get up. Rouge seemed to understand without many words of what suddenly dawned on him. Actually, it was more along the lines of who dawned on him.
"Knuckles!" Rouge snapped.
"I have to," Knuckles protested as his mind began to narrow down to one objective.
"Knuckles," Rouge said, forcing him to sit back down because she knew that she didn't want to argue with him as she was so accustom to doing countless times before, "I don't know if you still remember, but Sonia is alright, remember?"
The force she used to push him back down did bring some pain, but that was only because of the amplified pain he already had. Since the pain shook him back into his thoughts, more or less, he was going to be mad, but what she said helped him remember another detail: Sonia was out of the line of fire, and it was primarily due to the fact Knuckles stayed behind while she went to go get help. Rouge refused to leave him, and it gave Sonia some ease that Knuckles had backup while she went to go get help.
Knuckles also began to remember other details, such as the one who was piloting the machine that was originally intended to get them out of here before things went wrong: Sonia's boyfriend, Bartleby.
Only Rouge knew what was really going through Knuckle's mind concerning their relationship. One one hand, he congratulated them and knew that Sonia was happy in her relationship with Bartleby. On the other hand, he had beaten himself up over the fact that he was so close to telling her how he really felt about him, and how he really felt about their relationship.
On so many levels, more than Knuckles cared to admit, he knew that Bartleby was far a better man than for Sonia than he could ever be, and it wasn't just because of their positions in the world. Yes, Bartleby was a high-class citizen in the world of Mobius, but he carried other aspects that were far more important for a relationship, such as a better hold on one's anger.
His anger was occasionally a problem with girls: it's why he felt he couldn't hold one, especially a woman he was so deeply in love with. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that Sonia was his first, but only Rouge knew that.
In a twisted sense, Rouge knew a lot about him than what he cared to admit to himself, such as how hurt he was concerning Sonia and Bartleby's relationship. It's not that any of them were evil: it was just the realities concerning the slice of life. Sometimes, your first isn't your only, but it still hurt Rouge to see him like this.
Actually, it hurt Rouge to see Knuckles in any pain at all. Their play arguments were one thing, but to actually see him hurt was something completely different, like the time she had caught the guy punching down trees with his bare hands. That took weeks to get over.
It was similar to the present situation: beaten, bruised, and hazed. The only difference was the fact Knuckles wasn't intentionally trying to hurt himself. It was a good thing for him that she was able to get through to him and at least make an agreement to talk.
"Just, stay still," Rouge ordered gently, "I'm going to need to bandage you up again."
That's right: now that he thought about it, he remembered why it was so hard to breathe – he had bruises in his chest and one of his ribs conveniently broke. If Rouge had not been there, he knew he would have been gone.
He was too tired and too weak to complain, and complied with Rouge's terms and stayed still as much as he could as Rouge did her work.
Knuckles knew he wasn't exactly over Sonia, and he knew that Rouge knew. If this idea came to him about a month ago, he probably would have laughed at the idea of Rouge comforting him as he took the road of getting over Sonia.
It was almost as if Rouge had a natural instinct of reading him.
"Don't worry," Rouge replied, "She's fine."
"That's not it," Knuckles replied.
He was tired of a lot of things, now that he thought about it.
"Sonia is safe, you know."
"I know that, and I know I should be over that, but I'm not."
She sighed softly, her ears flattening at his remark. Yes, it annoyed her how Knuckles wasn't over it yet, but she was touched by now long and how hard he fell for just one woman.
Then again, perhaps it had to do with such different lives. Being confined to a floating island guarding an ancient crystal of great power was a psychological fight within itself. Maybe it was honorable to do it, but she was more worried about what was going on in his head. Being alone for hours on end would have made others snap a long time ago, practically praying to the heavens for someone to come just for a good fight. She knew this because she knew that would happen to her.
Knuckles was commendable for that much.
However, there was a lot more he was commendable for: if only she could get him to see it.
Scooting closer to Knuckles after the bandage had a firm fit, she took Knuckles into her arms, careful to not hurt him more than she already was. Hearing his groans already brought enough mental pain anyway.
"Rouge…?"
"Don't talk," Rouge replied, "Just sleep. You're going to need it for when backup arrives."
"But, Rouge-"
"-But nothing: I nearly lost you in that last fight, so just listen to me and try to rest."
There was some level of relief to hearing his light huff of complaint, but she knew he was fighting a lost cause because he was too tired.
Even falling asleep took less time than she imagined, and she was rather talented knowing when Knuckles was asleep – it gave her time to think and smile at a face she had learned to become overly fond of.
"Rest well Knuckles… I love you."
Artist's Comments:
Thank you, once again, for reading another one of my one-shots. I appreciate that after so long, you still take the time to read these short works. For those of you that do not keep track of my DeviantArt (my name is Moonspirit10, by the way), will know that as of late, I was having an artblock of the most terrible sort. I took the liberty of looking around in my favorites to see if there was anything inspiring. I stumbled across knuckles and Rouge by sakurahimemiya, and let dumb ideas come as they come.
I'll admit, for trying to come up with something original, it didn't work out for me this time. Yes, the scene itself could have been all about physical pain, but I felt that I was going to be so unoriginal by doing so. So, I went with an idea that maybe Knuckles had a liking into Sonia before she took another path that didn't involve Knuckles and Sonia becoming romantic. Don't get me wrong, I like Knuckles and Sonia, but I like Knuckles and Rouge more. They just have that kinda of chemical appeal to me despite their arguments. Still, I think this was a weak/gentle moment. I don't think I did my best.
I'm open to ideas.
May God's love, grace, and mercy be with us all.