It was a calm Saturday morning in Green Hills, Montana. Maddie Wachowski slipped on some sweat pants and a tank top and opened up the door, stomach rumbling for breakfast. She didn't expect to see a humanoid blue hedgehog standing outside her bedroom door, scratching at the back of his head. Not because a humanoid blue hedgehog was in her house, but because she knew the hedgehog usually slept in on Saturdays.

"Maddie. Maddie, I'm going bald!" Sonic said, clearly uncomfortable. Maddie watched as he scratched an individual quill loose, then held it out in horror for her to see. Blinking a bit in surprise, Maddie took the quill and examined it, then nodded, relieved.

"Wow, you really are a hedgehog…" She said.

"What does me going bald have to do with me being a hedgehog?!" Sonic squealed, flapping his hands anxiously.

"You're not going bald– or at least, not permanently. See, your quills still have their follicles at the end, this is natural. With Earth hedgehogs it usually happens around what's basically puberty for them, so… I think you're quilling, Sonic."

"Quilling? But Longclaw said I never needed to worry about that whenever I asked her." Sonic said.

"She probably meant you didn't need to worry about that until much later. And much later is now." Maddie chuckled.

"Oh… yeah, that makes sense. But still, you get why I'm freaking out, right? I don't just seem crazy, right? It's just that this has never happened to me before!" Sonic said.

"It would've happened several times when you were still–"

"Has never happened to me when I was old enough to remember it. You know what I meant."

"Yeah. And I don't blame you for freaking out, puberty is terrifying. But hey, your adult color will start coming in, that's something to be excited about!" Maddie said, poking Sonic with the quill affectionately.

"I'm gonna change color?!"

"At least a little bit. Is it usually a drastic change for your world's hedgehogs?"

"I don't know, I didn't know any other hedgehogs on South Island. Aww man, I love being blue!"

"Sonic, it'll be okay. If you want, I can check and see if any new quills are coming in already." Maddie said. Sonic nodded meekly, and Maddie knelt down to gently run her hands through his quills. Sonic purred, feeling a bit calmer.

"Alright, new color wishlist, here we go. Hmm, green would look kind of pretty, ooh, and so would brown, or maybe it'll be even more peach? Or white! Oh man, that would make me look like Frankenstein, that would be so cool! Wouldn't that look amazing, Maddie?!" Sonic said.

"I'm sure it would, but it's actually just a darker shade of blue." Maddie said, taking a picture with her phone and showing Sonic a few ultramarine quills standing out against sky blue. Sonic smiled at the picture and resumed his scratching.

"That's going to irritate your new quills, you know. Oatmeal shampoo and coconut oil are supposed to help, you take a bath and I'll run out and get–" Maddie watched Sonic zip away in a streak of blue.

"Done." Sonic said eight seconds later, zipping back with the items she had listed in his hands.

"Did you use Tom's spare change he left on the table?" Maddie asked.

"I'll pay him back." Sonic promised, entering the bathroom and starting up a bath.

"Use the shampoo as a sort of bubble bath, and try to avoid touching your quills. They'll fall out naturally over the course of… maybe two weeks, if it works anything like it does for Earth hedgehogs. And when they do fall out…" Maddie rummaged around in the cabinet, before taking some toilet paper rolls out of a bowl and putting the bowl next to the bathtub. "Put your quills in here. We probably shouldn't let them end up in the landfill."

"No, let's do that, I want to see what would happen if that crazy goose that lives there ate one." Sonic joked, taking off his shoes and gloves and slipping into the tub.

"Pfft, you say that as if that thing could get any more powerful." Maddie joked back.

"Very true." Sonic said with a sagely nod, squirting a dollop of shampoo into the bath and swishing it around. He leaned back when the water was sufficiently bubbly. "Lost in the sauce…" He sighed contently. Maddie laughed and closed the door behind her for Sonic to bathe in peace. And Sonic did, in fact, feel very peaceful. He had been a bit itchy before, but now he felt perfectly fine. Quilling might not be as bad as he thought!

"Urghhhh… owwwwww…" Sonic moaned an hour later, lying face-down on the couch.

"You won't let me apply coconut oil to your quills. If I had done that it wouldn't hurt so bad now." Maddie looked up from her yoga, frowning as she saw Sonic twitch from pain.

"It stung when you tried to… I didn't know it would hurt worse without it!" Sonic whimpered. "And you say this is gonna go on for two weeks?" He added.

"That'd be my guess. At the very least, it shouldn't be as bad once you get used to it."

"But how am I ever supposed to get used to the most agonizing pain I've ever exper– AAAAAAAGH!" Sonic broke into a scream, clutching the sides of his head. An entire big quill came loose, and he tossed it into the bowl once the pain had subsided. He heard was a loud clunk noise from the bedroom, and Tom came running into the living room with an alarmed face.

"What's going on?!" He shouted, before seeing Maddie perfectly calm and collected, and Sonic lying on the couch. "Sonic, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine, perfectly fine. I just have thousands of tiny needles trying to break out of my skull and upper back!" Sonic snarled.

"He's quilling. Losing old quills and growing in new ones." Maddie explained.

"And I'm turning a darker shade of blue!" Sonic added.

"Heh, that too. Anyways, I know you're off-duty today, so you think you can keep an eye on him now that you're up? Mrs. Addington's horse's due date is today, and she really wants me there." Maddie said, finishing her routine and standing up.

"Of course! You could have woken me up and asked me, you know." Tom said.

"I wanted to stay close to Sonic for an hour or two, and I didn't want to keep you from getting your beauty sleep." Maddie smiled, giving Tom a smooch.

"Beauty sleep is much appreciated." Tom kissed her back.

Maddie went to get a jacket and pulled it over her tank top. "If he asks you to, fill the medicine dropper with the coconut oil on the table, and apply little drops in the space between his quills. We tried to put it on before, but he said it hurt too much." Maddie instructed Tom.

"But now it hurts even more. Tom, can you do that?" Sonic muttered, resting his head on his hands.

"I'm on it. See you, Maddie!" Tom said.

"Take pictures of the baby horse!" Sonic added, waving.

"I will. See you!" Maddie said with a bright smile, stepping out of the house.

"Alright, coconut oil, coconut oil." Tom said, opening the bottle and filling up the medicine dropper beside it. He sat down beside Sonic and tapped him on the shoulder. "Sonic, can you sit up?" He asked. Sonic grunted a bit and sat up, wincing as his back quills rubbed against the couch. Tom had to stifle a chuckle when he saw Sonic. His big quills were thinning, and tips of ultramarine were dotted around his head. Even ignoring his quills, he had patches of short, fuzzy darker fur amidst lighter, longer, and fluffier baby fur, scattered across his body. Sonic noticed Tom was staring at him, and turned his head, looking annoyed.

"What's wrong?" He said.

"It's nothing, it's just that you really look kind of funny. Now hold still." Tom chuckled.

"So? Mobians tend to look awkward during puberty, that doesn't mean you have to stare and make a big deal out of it!" Sonic said.

"Everyone looks awkward during puberty. You should see my pictures from high school. Now hold still." Tom said, holding the dropper next to a space between Sonic's quills and squeezing a drop out– accidentally bumping the dropper into Sonic's head as he did so.

"OW! It hurts even more when you do it!" Sonic said, flinching.

"Well, yeah, I'm not the veterinarian of the house." Tom said. Carefully moving his hand, he squeezed another drop, and Sonic flinched back again with a pained moan.

"Alright, do you wanna lie down again like you were before and I'll sit down next to the couch? You wouldn't have to sit up, which might help a bit." Tom said. Sonic nodded, promptly flopping face-down onto the couch again. Tom knelt beside the couch and resumed applying the coconut oil.

"Did you really look super weird in high school?" Sonic asked.

"The weirdest. I had the worst acne ever, and it was like my limbs were growing when the rest of my body forgot to for a while, I looked like a jellybean on stilts." Tom said. Sonic burst into laughter.

"Ahahahaha, you've GOT to let me see that sometime!" Sonic chuckled.

"Definitely! But in exchange we need to take awkward puberty photos of you, too." Tom said.

"It's a deal. It'll be good to remember how handsome and cool I was as a teenager." Sonic said.

"Sonic, no offense, but right now you look like if a toilet brush got put in a blender."

"Tom, I'll have you know that this kind of rugged appearance is considered very attractive in hedgehog culture."

"It is? Sorry if I was insensitive." Tom apologized.

"Dude, I was joking. I have no idea how most hedgehogs view quilling, I… didn't really know any other hedgehogs growing up." Sonic said.

"Oh…"

"But that's okay. It just means that for me, quilling and all the stuff I think about when I think of it, can be whatever I want it to be. Does… does that, like, make sense?" Sonic said.

"I get you. And hey, I'm done. That wasn't too bad, was it?" Tom said,

"It was fine, and I'm already starting to hurt less! Thanks for talking with me while you did it, if I knew that would make it better I would have let Maddie put it on before." Sonic said.

"Yeah, you should probably have Maddie apply this stuff when it's possible, she's the one that went to school for this kind of stuff." Tom said.

"Mhmm…" Sonic sighed, eyes drooping.

"Sleepy?"

"A bit…"

"Too sleepy for a John Wick marathon? There was a collection on sale at Walmart last night."

"I'm awake! Anything for Keanu!" Sonic's eyes jolted open. Tom laughed and grabbing the DVDs.

"Hahahahaha! You two look like a boy and his stuffed animal." Maddie laughed as she walked in to the living room to find a John Wick movie stuck on the main menu. Tom had fallen asleep next to the couch, and Sonic had followed suit, rolling off the couch in his sleep. Tom had wrapped his arms around Sonic, who was twitching his legs like a dreaming dog, gently kicking Tom in the side. Tom roused from his sleep when he heard Maddie.

"Hey, Mads. You back from Addington's? Did you have anything for lunch?" Tom said.

"Yes, I had lunch– and I would have had supper if things had gone right. Tom, it's nine thirty at night."

"Nighttime already? Must have been one heck of a delivery."

"There were some complications, but the mama and the foal are okay now. After that Mrs. Addington had me stay over for lunch, and then I decided to tell the clinic and the police station at least one of us would have to stay home with Sonic for the next few days, and then I decided to buy some proper quilling medication and some other things for Sonic. Blankets that we can cut holes in so they're not pressing on his quills, an ice pack that's small enough to not cover his entire face, and some TV dinners so he can eat lying down on the couch. And by then it was late so I decided to get some supper, but it was taking forever to even get a table so I just left and ordered a pizza for delivery, and then… well, I got here just now. I'd been texting you, but I can see why you didn't get any of them." Maddie explained.

"Yeah. We had a John Wick marathon, it was gre– okay, that's it, I'm waking him up, the kicking is starting to get annoying."

"Oh, don't you dare!" Maddie laughed, sitting down beside them and booping Sonic's nose. Sonic sniffed, and blinked his eyes open.

"Oh, let him sleep just so you can wake him up?" Tom said.

"Night already…? Wow, I was really tuckered out." Sonic twitched his ears, stepping over Tom's legs and stretching. Tom sat up, a few little blue quills falling to his lap. As he did so, the doorbell rang.

"There's the pizza!" Maddie exclaimed.

"YUM!" Sonic cheered, pumping his fist into the air.

"Glad to see you're feeling better!" Maddie said, smiling brightly at the sight as she went to get the pizza. And her smile was equally bright, although a bit more sleepy, when the clock struck ten and she was on the couch, leaning on her sleeping husband's shoulder, with Sonic resting his head on her lap in turn. An pizza box with used napkins and a few remaining slices sat on the floor in front of them.

"This quilling stuff really isn't as bad as I thought it would be… I guess you guys being here with me makes it all the better." Sonic sighed. He shuddered, unable to imagine what it would be like if he was still living alone in his cramped little cave while he was quilling. …He'd probably have to stay in his cave the whole time, in fact, or risk leaving a trail right back to his home.

"Puberty is a hellscape, Sonic. We lived through it, it's the least we can do to help you live through it, too." Maddie said.

"Oh, that reminds me, Tom said he wants to show me pictures of him from high school." Sonic yawned.

"I have some pictures of the two of us." Maddie said, pulling out her phone to show Sonic pictures she had taken of an old yearbook. Sonic couldn't help but chuckle softly. Gangly limbs, acne, braces, all with 80s fashion to top it off. But even though he was laughing, he couldn't hide how comforted he felt as he drifted off to sleep. Not just knowing they could relate to growing pains, but also that they were here. That he had a family once again to grow up in.

On official artwork, Movie Sonic looks darker blue like Modern Sonic, but in the actual movie he looks lighter, like Classic Sonic.

Not sure if I'm jealous of Tom and Maddie for essentially adopting Sonic or jealous of Sonic for essentially getting adopted by Tom and Maddie.

Also I think this might be the first post-release sonic movie-based fic on this site? Or at least one of the first.