Notes: I recently found a bunch of this story hiding on my hard drive, and I've decided that I don't care about continuity or chronology or even these so-called plots that everyone seems obsessed with these days. This story is henceforth vibes only. Feel it out with me. (AKA, I wanna post this old stuff so I'm gonna. I have enough for at least one or two more chapters. We'll see.)
Also, please note: I wrote this as news of Forces was slowly being drip-fed to us, so we're solidly in canon, what canon? territory. I reiterate: vibes only.
(Also also, I am so sorry about Sonic's lame joke in here. I was younger then. It was 2017 or something. But, 2022 me can't be bothered to try to write around it so it exists as an artifact of the past.)
Breaking Point
Ch. 4: Complications, Or: The Buddy/Gadget Dilemma
"You know what I think?" Sonic says as Knuckles shows him around the base. The rookie—Buddy? Gadget? Sonic isn't sure about his name—was following, hanging off Knuckles's every word, ogling Sonic with eyes and a hero worship Sonic hasn't seen since Tails was young, but Knuckles sent him off to help Tails with something. The fox looked aggrieved as Gadget (Buddy?) jogged up to him, reported in like Tails was a drill sergeant and not some hapless victim of Knuckles's terribly vindictive timing, but Tails must've seen something in Knuckles's thinly-veiled desperation, something that said please deal with him I want alone time with Sonic (as alone as they could get, in this tiny base of hundreds), and he obliged.
"What do you think?" Knuckles asks in return, stepping to the side so a group of resistances fighters, decked out in full gear, can get by. "Take it easy a little, Einstein. Don't want you to hurt yourself."
It feels good, to hear him joking. Even with Sonic's spotty memory, this feels familiar, feels like home, and he grins back. "Watch out. I'll figure out gravity if you don't stop me."
"Einstein was relativity," Knuckles shoots back as the hall finally clears. He starts forward again, so there's no way he saw Sonic's confused-fascinated expression, but he still answers the unasked question: "Been spending too much time with Tails."
"Ah." Sonic speeds up to catch up, nearly overtakes Knuckles completely for his trouble. "Anyway, I think Buddy—"
"Gadget."
"I think Gadget—"
"Buddy."
"Really Knuckles? Are you jerking me around on purpose? Do you wanna know what I think or not?"
Knuckles shoots him a grin that's like the sun rising it's so bright, and Sonic, in all his lovesickness, is nearly blindsided. "Sorry," Knuckles rumbles, and it's the first time Sonic has heard him apologize so easily. Being a leader is humbling him. How about that. "Please, tell me what you think."
"I think your favorite little rookie knows Infinite."
Knuckles stops, right there in the middle of the hall. "You think what?"
Sonic grabs his elbow and steers him out the flow of traffic, into a dimly lit corner that everyone is avoiding. "Be quiet. I don't think he wants anyone to know."
"How, pray tell, do you know?"
"It's the way he looks at him."
"Sonic, I swear to Chaos, if you don't start making sense in the next ten seconds I'm gonna clock you so hard you'll get your memory back."
"Actually, that's not a bad idea. I'm gonna add that to the list of Ways to Get Sonic's Memory Back. It's underneath home videos but above electrocution."
"Sonic, by Chaos, I love you but I'm not above making you suffer."
"Okay, okay." Sonic raises his hands, placating, and then grins as he really computes what Knuckles said. "You love me, huh?"
"Hedgehog—"
"Okay, for real though. Have you seen the way Buddy, Gadget, whatever, looks— At Infinite? I mean, have you really seen him?"
"I mean, no, because I was too busy watching you get your ass beat."
"Ow, dude, feelings. Well, I was watching him. He looks at him how you look at me."
That brings Knuckles to pause. "Meaning?"
"How I look at you when I think you don't notice."
Knuckles sucks in a sharp breath. "Are you sure?"
"Absolutely."
"Chaos, this is bad..." Knuckles lets his back hit the wall so he can slide to the floor. "Buddy... knows Infinite... He knows him enough to..." He groans and leans his head back; Sonic hears it thud into the wall.
"Yeah," Sonic says, hollow. "Yeah, he does."
Knuckles lets out a dry, deep, slow chuckle of sorrow. "Why are things always complicated?"
Knuckles is laid out on his stomach, arms stretched above his head because he has a headache. He's also got a swollen forehead, the result of someone's fist (not sure whose). Sonic, for his part, is sitting beside him, legs crossed, leaning so that he can rub between Knuckles's top two vertebrae. His fingers find the notches easily, sink in, and Knuckles lets out a groan.
"These are the only two vertebrae that have names," Sonic says as he rubs. He taps the top one. "Atlas, who held up the sky." Then the second, "Axis that it spins with."
"Learn that from Tails?" Knuckles grunts, stretching his neck so that Sonic can have better access.
"Nah." Sonic kneads, bringing his fingers down the hills and valleys of his spine, before moving to the taunt muscles of Knuckles's back. "I know the bones and muscles. Kinda gotta. When something pops at the speed of sound, you gotta know if you're going down."
"Makes sense. Uh," Knuckles groans as Sonic finds a tender spot and presses. "Chaos, where have you been?"
"No idea." The heel of Sonic's hand meets Knuckles's trapezius, where most of his tension is hiding. Above his head, Knuckles's hands clutch the blankets as Sonic drives the hand into the muscle. "You know, I was thinking about that. Where I was. Sometimes I dream song lyrics."
Knuckles is clearly not in complete control of his body at the moment, so when he doesn't respond, Sonic doesn't take offense. He makes bread out of Knuckles's back for a few minutes, happy for the quiet moment, just the two of them. There's so few of those these days.
Eventually, he pulls his hands away so he can massage his own wrists. His poor hands are the weakest part of his body, especially his wrists, so he can't keep up the massage indefinitely. Knuckles stretches, his spine pops, and he seems to come back to himself.
"Song lyrics?" he asks, and sits up. Sonic, unhappy with this new development, not ready to be done with this intimate moment, makes an unhappy sound and reaches for his shoulder. He pulls Knuckles down so that his head can rest on Sonic's legs, in his lap, and sinks his fingers into the fur around his head, holding his skull like a basketball. A gentle scratching motion has Knuckles's eyes fluttering closed.
"I think Infinite likes rap," Sonic says to the question of a while ago. "Similar to someone else I know."
Knuckles's eyes open and he looks up at Sonic with something like thunderclouds in his gaze—worried and tumultuous. "Why would you know that?"
Sonic shrugs and lets his hands move so that he's back to Knuckles's neck, where he moves his fingers in small circles to help ease the tension he finds there. "I don't remember. Just angsty lyrics sometimes. I am the darkest of days and all that."
Knuckles snorts and Sonic is rewarded with his eyes closing again as he relaxes. "Sounds like bad rap."
"Mm," Sonic hums. "Anyway, you know how Buddy—"
"Gadget."
"Knuckles." Knuckles laughs in response to Sonic's fake exasperation, and it's a nice, calm, deep sound. It makes Sonic feel safe, the fact that he's so relaxed and laughing like this. It's like they can't die tomorrow. He wants to bottle that feeling and carry it with him around his neck.
"Sorry," Knuckles mumbles. It's still strange to hear him apologize so easily.
"It's okay," Sonic whispers in return, because no apology should go without a reply, no matter how silly. "Listen, you know how Buddy knows Infinite, knows-knows him?"
"Yeah?"
"That must make Infinite... the gayest of days, huh?"
A pause. Knuckles stops breathing, Sonic's hands freeze because he's terrified he just broke Knuckles with that one, but then Knuckles finally breathes out, slowly. "Are you kidding me, Sonic?"
Sonic laughs, throws his head back with it, and is rewarded with Knuckles's dead cold stare when he finally looks back down at him. "What?"
"You owe me."
Sonic can't argue with that, and he lets his hands go back to their circling, rubbing massage, feeling all the lighter.