There's not much of a view, even from the very top of their hideout. The sky dark and dotted with thick black clouds, the smog and bright city lights blotting out the familiar stars he ought to be able to see. Another difference of this whole place, and yet another that Sonic didn't care for.
There are gold and red spots of light in the distance that Sonic can make out, blurred by the muddy haze of the sky, and for a while he tries to draw lines between them like constellations. Swears that they all draw out the gloating grin of Eggman that's plastered across nearly every flat surface of this whole place. Wonders if it's deliberate on the doctor's part, or his own mind forcing patterns.
Either way, the sight makes his lip curl with disgust.
"You should get down from there," A gruff voice calls to him from below, drawing the hedgehog's gaze down to the rooftop. Meets narrow purple eyes, set serious above a frown. Knuckles. "It's not a good place to linger."
"But it's so nice up here!" Sonic says with a forced cheerful tone, throwing his arms out and kicking his feet as if he really enjoys the narrow perch. "You can see all of Egg-topia from here." He says mockingly, glaring out at the sight that's almost as rotten as the smell of its smog.
"You're too exposed," Knuckles calls out firmly, resting his namesakes on his hips as he practically attempts to pull Sonic down with the force of his gaze alone. "It's a tactical risk."
Sonic shoots him an unimpressed look, before rolling his eyes. "Who cares about tactics," He grumbles, more than a little irritated at being bothered at one of his only respites. What little escape he has in this place.
It's the wrong thing to say though, the echidna below letting out a frustrated snort of air before stepping back and repositioning himself. It takes Sonic just a little too long to figure out what he's up to, watching the other boy winding up a swing.
"H-hey, don't!" He shouts, but it's too late. Knuckles lets loose a punch to the base of the metal spire that the hedgehog is balanced on, the force sending powerful, rippling vibrations all the way up to the top. It's a miracle the strike didn't split the structure in half, but it does throw Sonic from his spot. Sends the boy scrambling to catch himself as he falls, reaching out to slow his descent and ease the heavy landing waiting for him. Gets his feet under himself enough that he can turn the fall into a grind down to where Knuckles is waiting for him, with arms now crossed over his chest.
Sonic skids to a stop just in front of him, almost slamming right into the other boy. "You know there are easier ways of talking to a guy, right?"
"And there are easier ways to get captured by the enemy," Knuckles says gruffly, purple eyes narrow as they stare Sonic down. "But not many."
"Like Eggman could even touch me," The hedgehog says easily, shrugging as he turns partly away from Knuckles, busies himself with brushing away dust he doesn't feel. And is almost caught right in the jaw by the sudden strike the echidna throws his way, barely stumbling out of the path of the older boy's swing in time. "What was that for?!"
The only answer he gets is a familiar flurry of rapid punches aiming right for his face, an onslaught that the hedgehog dodges with quick steps and careful ducks of his head. Until the heel of his step hits nothing but open air, Sonic's balance quickly rocking backwards and tipping over the roof's edge. His arms swing out, flapping ridiculously as Sonic tries to right himself before he's sent falling once more.
But for once Knuckles is faster, one of his hands snapping out to seize Sonic by the base of his throat and hoist the boy off his feet. The look in Knuckles' eyes carries a weight he isn't used to seeing there, a grim kind of anger that has Sonic's mind immediately conjuring a picture of this world's Tails. And right on its heels, that scene he had spied on between the echidna and fox. The very same image that had brought Sonic up here to begin with.
"You may not care what danger you bring on yourself, Sonic." Knuckles starts low, voice struggling to keep down the emotion that burns, clear and bright, in his gaze. "But I do, and so do your friends." The last word comes out with a growl, and for a second Sonic worries that maybe Knuckles might drop him over the edge. Some twisted way to prove a point? Make him take the words seriously?
He tries to struggle against the echidna's grip, prying uselessly at tightly squeezed, glove encased fingers, kicking his feet in a fight to gain some ground. But all his steps meet is more air, unable to land any footholds.
But it doesn't matter, in a moment Knuckles is dragging him back over the roof edge. Swinging around and launching Sonic towards the middle of the roof. The hedgehog easily throws himself into a roll, softening the landing and letting him snap up to his feet without delay.
"Try not to forget that they're counting on you."
"So now you're lecturing me, knucklehead?" There's more bite to his words than Sonic means to let out, but he'd be lying if he said this whole ordeal wasn't starting to grate. Being stuck in this weird world where the people that ought to be his friends look at him with distrust or something bordering dangerously close to hatred. And maybe that wasn't Knuckles himself, up until now he'd been much warmer to Sonic's sudden appearance than Tails had been, than most of the others too. But it's somehow so easy for the blue blur to let his frustrations bubble over now, here. Like some part of him wanted to take it out on the echidna, specifically. "What makes you think that I'm not taking this seriously? Like I don't care that my friends are missing, and I'm trapped here with you ?"
It's almost worse that Knuckles meets his own words with nothing but a steady, firm stare. The same way he had that day with Tails, as if the other boys' emotions rolled right off of him. Totally unfazed.
"Because I know you," Knuckles says plainly, "I know how you like the risk and the challenge, and how you forget that despite what your confidence says, you are not invincible."
Sonic wants to refute the statement, because nothing has ever managed to defeat him before, but then his eyes catch on the crossing set of scars etched prominently on the echidna's forehead. Flit to and from each one in the array scattered across the boy's form, Sonic's words melting on his tongue.
Can still hear Tails' voice, so full of anger. Because of him.
He wonders if his Tails is angry too, wherever his best friend is lost now. It was Sonic's fault they got thrown into this mess, he would have every right to be.
Looking away from Knuckles' intense gaze, and out over the bright lights of the city, Sonic sighs. "I don't want to fight with you, Knux." He raises a gloved hand to rub beneath his quills, unsure what else to do. But when his eyes dart back to the echidna, he's surprised to find the other boy's attention focused on the ground between them, a new expression on his face.
The frown there is gentler than before, colored less by anger and more with what brushes dangerously close to… pain? And like with Tails' anger before, it has Sonic feeling off kilter. Lost.
Helpless in a way that he can't stand.
"I'm so out of the loop with you all, huh?" He asks more to the air surrounding them, than to the older boy himself.
"This isn't your world, it only makes sense." Knuckles says quietly, the look on his face trickling into his voice. "We had our own Sonic, and now you've been dropped in the middle of what's left behind."
"You mean what he left behind?" Knuckles doesn't look like he wants to answer, but he gives a curt nod of his head all the same. And then he's turning away from Sonic and trudging across the roof to the edge behind the base of the spire structure he had punched before, dropping down to hang his legs over the side. Hesitatingly, Sonic makes his way over to join the echidna, sitting quietly beside him. "You really cared about him a lot, didn't you?" He asks after a few beats of silence pass, the answer already obvious, but he says it more to prompt Knuckles into talking.
"We all did, he was our friend," Knuckles says heavily, kicking his feet so that metal topped shoes tap against the wall beneath him. Eyes fixed on the ground far below. "But it was different than that… for me, for us."
"For you, and Tails?" The question has Knuckles looking at him sharply, the set of his brows making an inquiry of his own. "I kinda, saw you two, the other night." He answers more than a little awkwardly, rubbing at his neck sheepishly. "Seems a bit obvious that you two are…" Sonic gives an odd wave of his hands, not sure exactly how to put it into words. "Thinking about that now."
"You do know that it's rude to spy on people," Knuckles says flatly, giving the hedgehog an unimpressed look. "Right? Or is that somehow different where you come from?" Finishes his question with a jab of his elbow against Sonic's arm.
"No, nope, the manners are the same." The hedgehog says with a laugh, pressing his hands against the roof edge and kicking his feet a bit more wildly than Knuckles. "But you know, sometimes those stuffy things oughta be put on the shelf, just for a little while."
"You just consider yourself above common courtesy, more like." Knuckles shakes his head, but there's a fond smile playing at his lips. It doesn't last long though, the echidna's gaze settling onto Sonic and slowly draining the pleasant show of emotion from his features.
"Is looking at me, like looking at a ghost?" It feels so strange to think about, the way he's filling the place of another Sonic. One that was so special, so precious to his friends, that merely having this Sonic around brought out such different sides from them. To say nothing about Knuckles' words, and what this other Sonic was to not only the echidna, but to Tails as well.
"You're not him," There's conviction to the words, but the quiet way they're spoken has Sonic wondering if maybe that conviction wasn't as strong as Knuckles wanted it to be. "I know that, but you look so much alike it can be…"
"Painful?"
"Deeply so," Knuckles admits softly, pressing the metal spikes of his knuckles against each other.
It's suffocating, being so utterly unable to help, forced to just sit by and watch his friends— even if they aren't his version of them —grapple with pain he can do nothing about. May have even caused.
But if he did, maybe he could fix it too?
"We just gotta save the day, like we always do!" Sonic says cheerfully, leaning close and flashing Knuckles one of his trademark, confident grins. "Once I get home, I'm sure you'll get your Sonic back too."
His words, his enthusiasm, do nothing but bring a stricken look to his companion's face. As if Sonic had reached out and socked Knuckles himself. And then he's frowning again, looking down and away from Sonic.
"He was gone long before you showed up," Knuckles explains, voice carefully neutral even as his words carry a noticeable weight. "Your coming here had nothing to do with it."
Part of Sonic wants to press for more, push Knuckles to keep going. Let him understand. The desire must show on his face, a glance at his expression prompting the echidna to shake his head slowly. A hint he begrudgingly respects.
The silence that falls over the duo then is thick, weighing heavily on both their shoulders. Enough so that it seems to strangle the air from Sonic's lungs, the longer it lasts.
"Sooo," The hedgehog starts with a light tone, dragging the sound out as he laces his fingers together, before stretching them out in front of himself. "You and Tails, huh?" He bumps his shoulder against Knuckles' own, giving a playful waggle of his brow. Part of him wants to ask about the three of them, before, but even just considering an alternate universe version of himself in such a way, with his two closest friends… It makes Sonic feel strange. Unsteady, stomach tying itself into braids within the chamber of his gut. Doesn't know if it's better or worse, than how it feels to remember what he saw between the other two.
Sonic swears he can see the pink of a flush spill over the other boy's cheeks, the echidna looking uncharacteristically shy, grumbling when he speaks. "Is it simply your nature to pry?"
"Can you really blame a guy for being curious?" Sonic gives his friend a toothy grin, showing a complete lack of shame. "Gotta be honest, I never woulda expected that to happen."
"I doubt we would have, if it hadn't been for… our Sonic." Sighing gently, Knuckles raises his attention to the sky above them. Gaze darting about the gray coated blanket of darkness, searching for any of those twinkling lights that Eggman's city had managed to blot out. "He was like a sun, and we fell so easily into his orbit." A spike adorned hand stretches out to the unreachable sky above, slowly closing around empty air. "Once swept up in that pull, it only made sense that we would… fall together, too." Pulling his hand to cradle against his chest, Knuckles heaves a deep breath. And then lets himself fall back to lay against the rough top of the roof, falling quiet once more.
Sonic appreciates the small buffer of distance the change allows him, knowing that Knuckles can't see his face now. Can't see the way his jaw tenses, teeth pressing together until they start to ache. Feels as if he ought to say something, but the words never rise to his tongue. Catching on the burning feeling inside his middle.
"The stars used to be so bright, back on Angel Island." Knuckles eventually starts up again, voice quiet as he frees Sonic from the struggle of piecing together half empty words. "You could see more of them there, than anywhere else."
"I wonder if it's like that, back in my world." Sonic comments lightly, for once wishing he could be back on that island. Sat beside the Knuckles that he knows, trying to count all the twinkling lights above their heads. Feeling at ease, instead of how he does right now. "I've never really stopped to look, before."
"You should when you return, it's a beautiful sight to see. And an even better one to share." Knuckles kicks his feet gently where he lays, the only movement the echidna makes that Sonic can see from the edge of his vision. "He'll never say it, but I'm sure your Knuckles gets as lonely as I did."
His words are surprising, have Sonic turning around to look back at the other boy, the arches of his brows drawn together. "Lonely?" He questions, hunting through the memories he has of Knuckles, his Knuckles. If he had ever noticed that in him, before. "He always seemed… content, dedicated to his island and the Master Emerald."
"Mmh," The echidna hums, his namesakes pressed together where his hands rest against his torso. "You can be steadfast and lonely at the same time, I was." Purple eyes flick from the smoke clouded sky above to catch Sonic's, before Knuckles gives a small jerk of his head towards the patch of empty roof beside him. An invitation.
One the hedgehog accepts, letting himself lay back with arms crossed to pillow his head. "Then one day an irritatingly carefree blue menace and his little fox friend decided to invade my home." He says it with a touch of exasperation, but one quick glance reveals the smile on his features, fond and easy.
And now it's Sonic's turn to nudge an elbow into his side, with a grin of his own. "Yeah and since then you've known the wonder of fun and adventure ."
"Since then I've forgotten what peace feels like," There's more annoyance there, but it's followed by a soft chuckle. "And I wouldn't give that up for anything. Not a moment." That smile lingers on his mouth, eyes shut, and despite his words, Knuckles looks surprisingly peaceful lying there. Has green eyes transfixed, taking in the surprising but… charming sight.
Just for a little while, they stay like that. Quiet, comfortable, lying beside one another.
Only broken when Knuckles speaks up again, surprisingly vulnerable. "We used to lie together like this, the three of us, watching the stars." He says, stretches a hand up to the lightless sky above and slowly traces out shapes against the empty canvas. "I would tell them about the stars and their names, the constellations and asterisms they form, and the legends that my tribe passed down through generations."
"I wonder if the stories are the same," Sonic breathes, following the pictures that Knuckles carves out of the clouds. Is so focused that he misses the way the echidna looks over, studies Sonic in nearly a mirror to his own earlier staring.
"I suppose I'll need to share some with you," He says, voice nearly as quiet, a whisper in the dark. "One of us should know."