Idea from @Jasmine_Williams14 !!
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Sonic's little heart pounded. His breaths shook against his ribcage and up his throat until his whole body felt it could explode. His heart thumped so hard it felt like it could shatter all the bones in his torso, the beats rippling down his spine and sending shivers all through his veins.
He never wished to find himself in this predicament. He never predicted it could happen, being what he thought to be so careful. Maybe he had gotten a bit reckless recently, and right now, looking back, he could see that. Maybe he thought too much of himself, believing he could never mess up.
This time he had. Big time.
Sonic felt cold, like the petrified charge chilled him to the core. He couldn't overcome the feeling, even though what incubated him brought warmth to his tiny body from the outside. He scrunched his eyes closed, and his stomach felt abandoned at where the journey began, his little tummy empty with sickness.
He could only feel the movement, not daring to push open a frail eyelid hiding the jungle speeding into a blur of green below him for his orbs of the same shade to even catch a glimpse. It would just make this sickness worse. Sonic could feel the wind whistling beside him, and he could sense the travel to be dangerously fast.
But not as dangerous as keeping still.
Arrows zoomed past him, and if he stopped now one would definitely intrude his delicate little body. So he kept moving, with the assistance of someone who he cherished in his heart still going haywire, and someone he could just sense was going to come face to face with a grizzly end tonight.
Longclaw battled the breeze to burst through the roof of the jungle and fly away, turning sharply when she could sense an arrow heading for her. Sonic was buried under her wing that flapped until it ached to the point of numbess, her turquoise eyes checking on him now and again when she knew the path ahead to be free from trees.
He clutched into her feathers like a young koala would to its mother's back, or an elderly sloth to the thickest and sturdiest branch of a tree. She could feel his breaths ripple through her chestnut plumage, her eyes glazed with tears from the panic thriving in every one. She could feel his heart against her own, both of them out of control.
She could see safety ahead, the jungle fading into the distance down below. Nothing but blue blossomed in the sky above, Longclaw diverting to take a straight route above the forest with hopes the layers of leaves would be protection from any more arrows. She had an idea where to head for safety, but that's when it happened.
Dear God, that's when it happened.
Longclaw felt a jolt of pain. It sliced just under her wing, cutting into her feathers and breaking through into her skin before it could slip any further and reach Sonic. She hissed in agony, the sting from the exposed flesh within the fresh wound becoming more unbearable by the second. Sonic screamed, the majestic owl plummeting back into the forest.
Thud
Quickly, she stumbled back to her feet. The arrow poked out from under her wing, and purposefully, she kept it raised so she didn't have a chance of pressing it in any deeper. Longclaw could feel the warmth of blood seeping out, the injury crying like how she wished to. Hastily, she brought her wings round to peel Sonic away from her body and place him before her.
"Listen carefully, Sonic."
The distressed hedgehog kept himself calm, training his breaths and the throbbing of his heart so they wouldn't muffle Longclaw's voice. He could still feel them screaming in his head, and he glanced up with saddened eyes and an unerasable frown to his muzzle. His stomach still felt absent, but at the same time weaved into anxious knots.
"You have a power unlike anything I have ever seen, and that means someone will always want it."
The words felt sharper than the arrows. Like a knife stabbing Sonic's heart and freezing it into place. He gulped, as if the statements were the lump concealed in his sore throat, as a way to process them. Sonic had always understood the consequences of discovery to his powers, but now they had become reality, he must have underestimated.
He could see the stains of blood leaking into Longclaw's feathers, more visible as it touched the lighter shade of regal mahogany to her chest. The cut scarred beneath her wing, the guardian owl ignoring the incident and purposefully covering the wound as she could feel Sonic's stare burning into it. The little hedgehog made sure to pay full attention to her next instruction he could already hear at the tip of her beak.
"The only way to stay safe is to stay hidden."
Sonic glanced down, twiddling his fingers as a distraction from the truth. He really had messed up. If he hadn't been so careless, none of this would have happened. That tribe never would have found him, and Longclaw wouldn't be in this agonising mess that crystallised a hideous crimson in a trail under her wing. He nodded subtly to accept the command.
Longclaw hissed with eyes squinted like teal crescents from the shiver of pain under her wing once she moved it, reluctantly coping with it to dig through the bag hidden under the other. She snatched a ring, something Sonic was aware she had, and was aware of the immense power of, tossing it into the darkness of the jungle they had crashed back into.
It hummed mystically, growing quickly. It enlarged in seconds and hovered like a portal. Sonic peeked inside, the golden ring revealing another forest only just visible through the smokey night shade. He didn't know whereabouts this forest was located, seeming much less tropical and abstract than the one he had called home for the first 5 years of his life, the trees thicker and the vegetation less exotic.
"This world is on the far side of the universe. You should be safe there."
The words attacked Sonic again, sizzling in his chest like his own arrow grazes, the hedgehog welling up. He absorbed the hint with another gulp, hesitantly understanding what his guardian and motherly figure meant. It meant he would have to go through, without her. It meant she was accepting this horrendous fate.
It meant little Sonic would have to face whatever this portal held in the other side... alone.
"I don't wanna go without you!"
"You must. These rings will be your most important possession."
Longclaw passed the whole bag of rings to Sonic, the grasp she could feel rippling down the frail material hard and passionate. His little gloved hands kept them in place, the rumble in his chest by the pounding of his heart with adrenaline turned sour from the fear softly jingling the rings inside.
Longclaw guided Sonic to the entrance of the portal, the golden outline beginning to disintegrate and scream at the top of its lungs that this precious time was running out. It would close soon if Sonic didn't dash through soon, his life feeling in just as much jeopardy as her own.
She tapped his back with the tip of her wing to encourage him through, his cerulean quills feeling sharper that usual like the alarm hardened them. Longclaw treasured these few seconds, her hedgehog child's tiny green eyes staring straight through the metal armour that held her chest.
But she had to hurry. They were coming.
She could sense them, and when she looked up, they were heading straight for them. Weapons made from stone roughly tied to a stick replaced the arrows from before, threatening growls breaking through the wooden masks across their faces laced with tribal paint. She edged Sonic into the portal faster, and gave her final instruction.
"If you're ever discovered, use one."
"Never stop running."
"Now go!"
Sonic took a deep breath, closing his eyes so as not to witness this heartbreaking departure. He sped through the ring with the powers that caused all this mess, the bag pressed into the peach fur of his chest and stomach. He could feel his breaths press against the bundle of precious transportation he would assume to be fictional only, protecting them with his life that he already could be hanging in the balance.
But he shouldn't have turned back. This new forest welcomed him with unexpectedly open arms, and he should have taken the offer. Sonic glanced to where the ring remained, its hazy golden glow spreading across the grass like a warm shadow. He could see the indentation it left to the darkness fade away, and without a second thought he dropped the bag and darted into the other direction.
"Longclaw!"
He could see her from behind, wings spread out. Even though her face sternly stared forward, Sonic could feel the vibe of tension and anger from her soul. It glazed her turquoise eyes, slanted in fury. He could see the tribe storming closer, and his gloved hands reached out to provide the help he knew would be useless to give if he ever had the chance.
Longclaw heard his tiny voice, turning for their gazes to reconnect only once more. She sighed like she had no means to even attempt an escape, keeping her body open wide as if she wished for the echidnas to take her life like their daggers and arrows craved maliciously.
Her last words became tattooed to this memory.
"Goodbye, Sonic."
"No! No!!"
Sonic's fingers met the dust of the ring once it became nothing but translucent particles, ready to vanish into history. There was no way to save her, the portal between the worlds now ceased to ever exist. He thought about grabbing his source of the rings and trying to get back, but he knew she was probably stabbed to death in the last few seconds.
And if he were to take on such a challenge, he could come to the same horrific ending.
He wanted to save her, but it was already too late.
He could sense it.
Sonic broke down into tears, crouching until his knees met his chest. Each breath quivered like someone shook him by the shoulders, and he choked on nearly all of them with eyes slammed shut. The bones of his little legs rattled in the envelope of muscle as his thumping heart shuddered them inside. He could feel his heart still moving, but to the now homeless hedgehog, it felt completely broken.
Gasp
Sonic spluttered in the cold night air. He clutched his throat with one hand and his chest with another, controlling his intake. His breath felt so steamed with the winter temperature from outside, the addition of an open window to his bedroom seeming more dangerous than soothing like how he usually found it. He thought he may have screamed himself awake, but he wasn't sure.
His eyes widened until they might have popped. They looked like emeralds glazed with trauma and strained with so much tension they could shatter. His hands naked from gloves slid to his collarbone from his throat as his breaths calmed down. He composed himself with gently closed eyes, the hand to his chest hitting the crease of his crimson duvet.
Sonic realised he was in the present. Not that wretched past.
But that memory wouldn't leave him alone.
He brought his hands to his eyes, leaking with salty tears. He choked on every breath like he had done as a smaller child in that frightful vision replayed like a stain to his brain in his sleep, the tears trickling into the fuzzy texture of his bare hands. Sonic felt the neck of his baggy bedtime shirt become dampened, but it didn't intrude his thoughts taking a straight path to what had just poisoned his night sleep.
He sobbed into his hands, the tears breaking between his fingers like rough water crushing a dam. He felt them drop onto the ruffle of duvet wrapped around his waist like rain from his eyes, some keeping subtle and only trickling down his muzzle. He accidentally swallowed some, and almost gagged at the bitter taste.
Everything came flooding back in that one single moment - the panic of what to do next when the portal abandoned him, the heartbreak from losing Longclaw right before his eyes feeling like it reoccurred just a minute ago, the uncertainty and downright fear of where to go next, the sickening weight of responsibility, and those sorrowful ten years alone only observing company and fantasising friendship rather than having it for himself.
Sonic brought his knees to his face like he had done in the nightmare, burying his head between them. He took in long breaths to steady his body that shook of these electrical shudders from this laceration to his childhood reappearing in his mind. This was the third time this week, at least, although he had begun to lose count how many times this tragedy had pounced on him and viciously corrupted his peaceful slumber.
He felt his heart throb at his ribcage like a criminal attempting to break out of jail, pulling at each one backwards to crack the walling and escape the building. It was like hands were really inside him, and he could feel them beating up his stomach until he thought he would be sick there and then. Sonic brought a hand back to his face just incase.
He felt dizzy, and when he tried to open his eyes and observe the room everything was blurred. The odd colours splattered around the room from the night lights' illumination were all moulded into one and fuzzy like a kaleidoscope through tinted glass. Sonic gripped the side of his head, his fingers scraped by his quills hardened in a fluster, with hopes to stabilise his rotating brain, it seemed.
He didn't know how to break free from this strange fit of dazed feelings, nothing seeming as usual. He thought about leaving the room and stumbling down the rickety attic stairs until he reached the bedrooms of his human family who accommodated the house before himself, but his legs jolted like they recognised the thought. He wasn't sure if he screamed in his sleep anyway, so it might be best to just wait.
Sonic couldn't move easily, his whole body vibrating until he practically bounced on the bed. The mattress squeaked, and so did his throat from the attempt to relieve himself with another cry. His throat felt tightened to say the least, like it had been shrunken and shut. He even found it difficult to breathe, and when he did it would shoot out in a puff of white steam from the chilled air.
He tried to stop crying, supporting the tears as they only trickled like a faucet rather than poured as a waterfall. He stopped gagging from the bitter flavour and gooey texture, the tears leaking thinner and tasteless. Sonic tried to intake slower, and his head rose from within his chest to try and see without fuzz shattering his clear vision.
He blinked a few times, and with a steady head, that seemed to do the trick. He brought his bare hands to his face, and where one blended into the rest of his arm, he pressed it into his eyelids and massaged the scarred orbs inside. Some more tears squelched out like juice from a squeezed fruit, and considering how dry and bloodshot his eyes were afterwards, Sonic knew there to be no more.
But his ears twitched, and he perked up a little. He could hear movement from the floor below, maybe even footsteps slamming into the pale grey carpet of the landing from the staircase where his room hung above. It gave him hope, squinting into the dimly lit space ahead where he knew the entrance to the attic to be carved into the wooden floor.
Soon enough, the planked flooring snapped open. Sonic assumed for there to be no more tears twinkling in the corners of his eyes, but as soon as he saw someone his aching heart really needed right this moment, more flushed out. He just bawled, feeling completely helpless, and like a tiny baby screaming for motherly attention.
(Y/n) Wachowski darted towards him, her arms burying his soaked face into her shoulder. Sonic could feel her hands softened with kindness rubbing up and down his back, the trail broken abruptly whenever her fingers met the quills spiking out from behind his shoulders and underneath his pyjamas. He could feel where hers ended around her neck, his nose meeting the woolen texture and his forehead joining her skin.
(Y/n) sensed his heart racing, each pump of blood boiling with anxiety and unbearable trepidation causing his whole body to tremble. She could feel his breaths trace up her neck, each one shaken. She kept her (e/c) eyes closed and just listened, using the sounds that sliced her soul rather than observations of heartbreaking reaction.
She had experienced this many times recently, but the shriek that summoned her had been the most frightful yet. She tightened the embrace between herself and the distraught hedgehog, his breaths stifled by the overflow of tears that he almost choked on every time. She whispered gentle sshh into his quills, keeping her face just above them as they seemed sharper from being startled.
Sonic's paws gripped the neck of (Y/n)'s clothing, the claws hidden at the tips of his fluffy fingers trying with all their might not to pierce the wool. He raised himself up until he could bring his face to nestle into her shoulder so deeply he probably wouldn't be able to breathe, but he needed somewhere to scream without awakening anyone else.
(Y/n) softened the hug to let him release whatever he felt he needed to. She could hear Sonic's screams from the skin he pressed them into being so close to her ears, his method of muffling them successful. It was like screaming into a pillow, alleviating, but with the arms of someone close to your thumping heart ready to soothe your back and breathe calmingly into your quills.
"I... had it... I... had that... dream again..." Sonic shambled through the explanation to his breakdown at just gone 2am on this crisp winter morning still consumed by the darkness of the night before, choking on each breath and inhaling more than he intended.
(Y/n) nodded, and he could feel the movement of her head rubbing against the side of his. He wrapped his arms fully around her neck until her crouched body was forced to stoop lower, and his fingers from both hands could interconnect around her. He could feel her hands rubbing up and down his back again, and more sshh sounds hazed over the top of his head.
She nestled her face into Sonic's quills, not giving a care in the entire world about the scratching sensation it implanted across her cheeks. She broke her lips through the cerulean shards and planted some sweet kisses between them. Sonic felt the tickle from them and the breaths breaking each one apart snaking around the back of his head. It worked like a charm to calm him down, the affection of the present overpowering the wreckage of his past.
He simply took a deep breath, and a sniff to clear the damage the meltdown had done to his nose. (Y/n) hummed a giggle from the unbelievable amount of blockage in there that he had simply stuffed back in, and she could feel Sonic's drenched cheek roll over to meet where her shoulder rose into her neck. It felt cold enough to activate a shiver of the spine.
She could feel his body relax, the tension straining his muscles disappearing. His breaths still quivered, but not as violently. His tears became history, only softly sparkled across the cream fuzz of his muzzle and as dampened marks across his duvet and rim of his shirt. His breaths seemed deeper and were spread further apart, and the grip to (Y/n) eased as she showered more kisses alongside reassuring words over him.
"It's okay, baby. Everything is okay."
"We are here for you."
"We love you. I love you."
"With all my heart, Sonic, don't ever forget that."
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