In The Shadow Of Your Spotlight

"Let's go to the club!"

"I can't feel my fingers anymore!" Sonic groaned. His fingertips had been dancing on the guitar frets for the whole afternoon. His back was hurting, and his arms were numb. Knuckles frowned at him with disappointment. "We must get through three more songs. You know Dave is about to hit us with a speaker if we don't get this done until Sunday." he said, pressured. Their next album was supposed to be done with recording on Monday. In the meantime, Knuckles was feeling responsible for their track, since he was the most engaged in music out of them, so showing any recklessness towards him might have been followed by an endless fight. Sonic was well aware of that, but he didn't care.

"You do realise I might bleed on my strings if we keep going, right?" Sonic demanded. Knuckles fixed him with a disapproving glare. "You think my feet aren't on the verge of falling off at any moment? Hell, I've been hitting the bass pedal for a few hours now, and I didn't complain a second about it."

"Well, I can't do it. I'm sorry, Knuckles, but I would rather keep my hands intact for our next show, thank you very much." he said hastily and took off the guitar strap to place the instrument on the floor. Knuckles was on the point of breaking down, placing his hand on his forehead and trying to keep calm.

Sonic lied down on the bed to rest for a minute. He was gazing at the posters on the wall, written on all of them with capital letters 'Dreamboat Express', and their famous photoshoot placed right above his bed. He sighed at the thought of their upcoming concert, already sick of all the sleepless nights and bad food he had experienced last time. Not to mention the fans, crazy people. Sonic was tired of all the screaming and wild fights for the front row. It was exhausting to be in the middle of attention. He just couldn't do it. "Can we please do something else?" he asked, after a long pause. Tails looked up at Knuckles in despair, who let out a drained sigh. Knuckles was conscious of their draining, so he decided to be understanding of his teammates. "Sure, what's on your mind?" he asked, putting his sticks on the small drum before him.

"I don't know, anything sounds better than this." he mumbled, staring at the ceiling. "Tom and Maddie aren't home for two days. We have the full house to ourselves. We can do literally anything. We can go out, have fun, do something crazy." he continued, desperate for something to obliterate his boredom. "I would rather feed the dog." Tails answered ironically. "You don't like feeding Ozzy." "Which proves my point." Sonic audibly sighed. "You're no help."

Sonic went back to staring blankly at the ceiling. Suddenly, an idea popped up in his mind and he raised his head impatiently to look at his brothers. "Oh, I know! We should go to a liquor store and buy alcohol. And drink until our livers explode. I wanna wake up in a flipping park tonight." he yelled.

Tails cast him a concerned look. "Yeah, we're not doing that. I think it would be better if I woke up under my blanket."

Sonic rolled his eyes and hit the mattress with the back of his head, returning to his previous position.

"We can play a game." Knuckles suggested. The blue-haired boy frowned at the ceiling, thinking of games that could bring him some joy for the moment. "What game?" "Monopo-" "No." he interrupted. "I'm not playing that. I always end up with two or three bucks. It's unfair." "Just because I win every time, it doesn't mean that the game is unfair. Rules are rules. It's all about strategy." Tails replied. "Strategy, my butt." Sonic mumbled.

"Fine, we can bake something." Tails said, looking at the ground while thinking of various desserts. Sonic lifted his head to look at his blonde brother with a concerned face. The kitchen was a sacred territory in the Wachowski residence. Only Maddie could turn simple ingredients into something called 'heaven on earth', such as pizza, tacos, and even sandwiches. Everyone knew not to bother her while she was doing her magic, and since Sonic isn't quite a magician with the food, but more of a certified warrior (We can't talk about the blender incident.), he is known to be dragged at least 50 feet away from the kitchen. "You did not just say that." "What? It's not that hard. You just need to follow some simple instructions." "Yeah, sure. Who's gonna pay for the kitchen after I blow up the microwave?"