List: Metal the Hedgehog, Sonic5521, SonamyRules159, and GalexiatheChao!
Thanks so much for the reviews and poll votes everyone! They all mean so much to me, and I had a lot of fun coming up with a story for the winners of the poll…Nick and Flash! Two brothers who can hardly be called brothers. Ha. It was fun planning. Let's get to it, eh? Onwards, march!
Chapter nineteen
Brothers
They were completely, absolutely, positively, different. They had no similarities whatsoever. One was quick in speed, one was quick in brains. One was cocky, one was shy. One was adventurous, one was a reader. One was daddy's boy, the other was mama's.
And yet they were triplets, along with their older sister Rose.
When a person knew one, they usually didn't know the other. They were that different. They were in the same class, and yet the two avoided each other like cats avoid dogs. They didn't try to avoid one another, for there was love between them; love that was pained and often not spoken of. But the one was in the popular group, and the other in the nerdy teacher's pet group. So they didn't see each other often anyway.
As kids, the two had been a bit closer. They had enjoyed telling friends and relatives that they were related; that they were part of a set of triples, and they had loved seeing everyone's astonished looks. In fact, there were times when Sonic would wonder if the two brothers would end up like he and Tails had. He had sometimes thought that it might be possible, since Sonic had been the cocky one, like Flash, and Tails the brains, like Nick. But for some reason the two hadn't bonded that way. Instead, they basically knew each other as a random hedgehog that just happened to live in the same home as themselves.
Amy blamed it on peer-pressure whenever Sonic brought it up. She seemed to think that Flash, at some point or another while in his elementary years, had learned that if he wanted to be in "the cool group," he'd have to ditch his weird brother somewhere along the line. And he had. It had been a slow process. But now the two were strangers. Hardly worth anything to each other.
And then seventh grade started.
Again, no one knew when it all started. Maybe it was at the beginning of the middle school years, when neither had any of their old friends with them anymore, and Flash had given in to Rose when she'd asked if he'd sit with them at lunch, and had sat with her and Nick for the first week of school. Maybe it was when during the first semester of seventh grade, Flash decided his cool friends weren't that cool for teasing every single nerd, including his own brother. Maybe it was when Nick and Flash were forced to work together on a group project, and Nick wouldn't take Flash not helping out for an answer.
But whatever the reason, there came a day when Sonic watched the triplets all get off the bus together, the boys actually laughing with one another, and Rose rolling her eyes, probably thinking "typical boys" in her mind as she stalked towards the house. And a flashback of his own relationship with his brother Manic popped into the blue hedgehog's mind as he watched the brothers, together, teasing Rose. Usually, he would've told them to stop. But there was something in Nick's eyes that told the father to let the boys be boys. There was something in Flash's own smirk that made Sonic smile instead of frown.
The two, who were totally different, where acting like brothers. Real brothers. Genuine brothers. And when Rose came in, complaining to her father a minute later, the only thing the father could say to her was,
"Hey, at least they're acting like brothers for once, eh?" And just as the rose hedgehog was about to huff at her father's obvious care-free attitude, the preteen stopped midstride. Turning back to her father, she stared out the window, watching the brothers talk like best friends in the driveway, watching Nick actually smile and open up, watching Flash treat his older brother by five minutes as an equal. And the girl laughed, a bit bitterly.
"Heh, you're right," she agreed, shaking her head in disbelief. "Couldn't they come up with another way to relate though?" Sonic chuckled, pulling his daughter close and ruffling her spines.
"Maybe they will someday," he mused. "They both play an instrument, you know. Drums and guitar. Maybe they'll make up a song about how to tease a sister." Rose rolled her eyes, groaning as she pulled away from her father, and Sonic merely smirked at her as she walked off. Turning back to the scene on the other side of the window, he watched as his two different sons continued talking, Nick's lips moving this time as he probably talked about some scientific term Flash didn't understand. And instead of looking bored, the younger of the two was actually listening. Another flashback found its way into Sonic's mind, one of Tails telling him how to power the Blue Typhoon with the Master Emerald, and he smiled as he realized that the two were acting like he and Tails, so long ago. And he thought that wouldn't happen, not after elementary school at least. Chuckling, the hedgehog turned from the brotherly scene. Change had never felt so heartwarming.