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“Sonic?” Amy. “You okay in there?”
“Great, Ames.” Sonic squeezes his eyes shut, clutching his temples. His elbows rest on the rim of the toilet. “Just peachy.”
There’s the sound of what Sonic guesses is Amy leaning against the bathroom door. “If you’re pregnant, you can tell me,” she jokes.
He laughs and shakes his head. His stomach churns. “Seriously, I’m good. I’ll be out in a bit.”
A pause. “Okay,” Amy says slowly. Dubiously. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“See ya.”
Sonic wipes his mouth and stares into nothingness. Then he flushes again and leans back against the wall, tasting bile. The fluorescents buzz overhead. Bass thumps through the walls.
Outside, there’s a muffled clamor where Amy is probably rejoining the party. Sonic absently checks for his phone. Nope, left it out there. Great.
The nausea has mostly subsided by now. But Sonic still feels sick when he blinks and behind his eyes, sees the wet clump of mucus and lavender he heaved up just moments prior to the entirety of his dinner.
What can he say. He’s been through a lot of weird shit, but this freaks him out.
✿
It’s not like he noticed anything too weird at first. Allergy season was already kicking his ass, so an extra cough here or there wasn’t gonna stand out.
No, the moment Sonic figures it really started was after he positively whooped Shadow at a race and then promptly developed whooping cough.
The high rise they’d agreed upon as the finish marker blazes in the evening sun, glass shimmering like water at top speeds. Sonic circles it once, twice, then speeds up the side, flinging nonsense over his shoulder at Shadow right behind him.
At the top, there’s a flicker of movement in Sonic’s periphery as he leaps over the air vent, and he lunges out of Shadow’s trajectory just in time. Shadow catches him by the ankle and flips him over, and Sonic’s back hits the AC unit with a solid clang.
“Ow,” he drawls. Bounces to his feet. “Sore loser, much?”
“You wish.” Shadow’s teeth are…
Wait. He’s smiling.
“Oh, you’re going down,” Sonic laughs.
They scrabble at each other for a moment, and Sonic lands one solid punch to the jaw before Shadow pins him by his throat to the concrete. Sonic kicks petulantly, and Shadow jostles, but holds fast.
Sonic can feel Shadow’s breath fan over him. His eyes gleam, almost brown in the fading light. Sonic’s stomach flips a billion times at the image of Shadow on top of him.
“Too easy,” Shadow says. The smile is gone, but Sonic can still hear it.
And Sonic opens his mouth to reply, but his entire body seizes, and he’s able to roll over when Shadow recoils in surprise.
Shadow watches him silently as Sonic hacks up his lungs into the crook of his elbow. Sonic holds up a finger until it passes.
“Jeez,” Sonic rasps. Coughs again. “That was crazy.”
Shadow eyes him with something like concern and amusement. “Try not to cough on me, next time.”
“Like you could even get sick.” Sonic sticks his tongue out, and coughs in Shadow’s direction for good measure.
Shadow leaves a little while after, blipping from the roof of the high rise with a short goodbye. Sonic stays and crosses his legs. Watches the sun set. His throat hurts, but besides the fit, he doesn’t feel sick. He probably just inhaled something, and that’s the end of it.
It’s not the end of it. Not even close.
✿
The first one appears, oddly enough, when he’s grocery shopping, of all places.
Usually, they’re out and about enough that having to actually go out and shop is a rare occurrence for him and Tails, but it’s been a slow couple of weeks and Tails practically begged for a refill on Pop-Tarts, so here they are.
Sonic hasn’t been to the store in a while, and he forgets to grab a cart. Tails follows with one behind him, and they head to the snack aisle first.
Y’know. Priorities.
“I’m not buying that for you,” Sonic says flatly.
Tails droops and puts down the box of Hot Cheetos Pop-Tarts. “I was gonna boil them.”
“In what world is that a good idea?”
They end up grabbing two boxes. Sonic finds the intrigue of boiled Hot Cheetos Pop-Tarts to be too strong to resist.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat a tortilla,” Tails says when Sonic tosses the package into the cart.
“First for everything,” he says. “Really?”
“Not that I remember.” Tails has one foot up on the cart’s bottom basket and pushes the thing along with his other. Sonic walks beside him.
The store has been blissfully un-busy, so Sonic’s alright with letting Tails take his time. Ish.
“Hey, untrue.” Sonic snaps his fingers. “I had tacos a couple months ago.”
“That wasn’t with me,” Tails points out. He inspects a box of instant oatmeal. “Technically, I’ve still never seen you eat a tortilla.”
“Yeah, Shadow had to hold me at gunpoint to try them, so.”
“You went with Shadow?”
“Yeah?” The cart stops rolling. Sonic halts too. Tails is staring at him, expression inscrutable. “What?”
He quirks a brow and studies Sonic, silent.
Then he shrugs and zooms past him on the cart. Sonic shakes his head, clears his throat—
Mistake. He doubles over in the bread and grain aisle, coughing so hard he’s afraid he’ll taste blood. Tails is back next to him in an instant, cart abandoned.
There’s something wet in Sonic’s throat. Tails makes an indignant noise when Sonic reaches back to grab it.
It turns into a huh of confusion when it’s out.
“Did you just…” Tails blinks down at Sonic’s gloves.
“Yeah.” Sonic cups the little purple petal in his palm. “Weird.”
Tails frowns. “Stop eating weird shit.”
“Language.” Just for that, Sonic headbutts him. Tails retreats, laughing. “Go back to the cart. Jeez, you think you know a kid…”
He wants to think nothing of it. But he doesn’t sleep well that night.
✿
“Get faster shoes, faker,” Sonic taunts.
“Get a new insult, asshole.”
Pine trees whip past them in spiky blurs of green. Shadow encroaches on the edges of Sonic’s vision, and he pushes his limbs to work harder. Go faster.
His heart thrums in his chest in time with his pounding shoes. Sonic whips around a trunk and latches onto a branch, launching himself knee-first into Shadow. He slams into the ground with a veritable oof.
Sticks snap and mud skids beneath Shadow as he slides. Sonic settles and dusts his hands. “That’s for tackling me.”
Shadow huffs. “You haven’t won, you know.”
“Don’t care. Just wanted to kick you.”
Shadow gets to his feet, brushing dirt from his gloves and fur. When he fluffs his quills, Sonic feels a little electric thrill run through him despite himself. He looks so disheveled, and yet.
The next moment he’s on his hands and knees, retching at the thing in his lungs, and Shadow’s there beside him. He says nothing, just gingerly places a hand on his shoulder and Sonic coughs even harder. Purple flutters to the ground.
“What…” Shadow trails off as Sonic scrapes the petals from the earth. They’re wet and slightly red around the edges.
“I’m fine,” Sonic hears himself saying.
“You’re lying.”
Sonic does what he does best. Runs, hard and fast. Fast enough to make his crowded lungs sputter and give out, and his limbs burn from lack of oxygen.
When he collapses somewhere in the forest, alone, it’s surrounded by petals. He coughs up a stem, and leaves it to rot.
✿
“They’re definitely flower petals,” Tails says. He tugs the plates from the microscope and extracts the petals with tweezers. “Looks like lavender.”
“Lavender,” Sonic repeats weakly. His throat burns, the result of the past few days of near-nonstop hacking and retching. There’s a trash bag he keeps beside his bed for the fits in the middle of the night. Yesterday he coughed up a leaf. “I don’t understand.”
“Well, I don’t know much about rare diseases.” Tails replaces his regular gloves with professional, sterile ones at the sink, then wanders over to the couch where Sonic sits. “But if I had to guess, this isn’t a viral infection. I’ll have to take some more readings.”
“Do what you gotta do, lil bro.”
There’s something disconcerting about getting his blood drawn by his little brother, but it happens quickly. Tails straps a something-or-other to his arm and checks his blood pressure and heartbeat, looking so serious Sonic can’t help but unleash a couple wisecracks.
When he’s doubled over in another coughing fit, Tails takes a sample of the lavender petals too. Once they’re washed of the blood, of course.
Sonic’s head pounds. He takes in a shuddering breath and it whistles around the flowers inside him. He coughs.
“Nope, not viral.” Tails launches himself into his swivel chair and scoots between monitors, reading various lines of text and typing away at his bright red keyboard. “It actually looks like the flowers are responding to energy surges in your nervous system. Like they’re feeding off it.”
“Chaos energy?” Sonic hobbles over and leans against the chair. His entire body aches.
Tails shakes his head, eyes still fixed on the document in front of him. “Something different. More organic.”
Sonic tries puzzling that through his head.
“It’s hard to know exactly where they came from with what little information I had,” Tails says. He scratches his head. “Sorry I can’t do more.”
“Hey, it’s something.” Sonic ruffles his fur affectionately. “Thanks.”
He tries not to think about the roots in his lungs. It’s not working.
✿
If Sonic had the mental capacity left to be embarrassed, he would. Having just coughed up an entire sprig of lavender in the middle of Amy’s living room in front of everyone at the party would be embarrassing if he weren’t seconds away from barfing.
Briefly, he wonders if it was something he ate. Then he remembers the hand on Shadow’s shoulder—the stranger—and scoops up the flower on the floor and fucks off to the bathroom.
When he’s done puking up petals and the mini hot dogs he ate earlier, Amy’s still waiting for him outside of the bathroom.
“Thought I told you to leave me alone,” he says, before seeing who’s beside her.
“Sonic,” Blaze says.
“Crap.”
Upstairs, the three sit on the knit pink rug of Amy’s bedroom. Blaze inspects Sonic’s hands and pupils while Amy watches silently.
He thinks he might be sick again. “What are you doing here?”
Blaze looks at him, face blank as ever. She knows he doesn’t mean the party. “Amy told me.”
“Told you… what?” He looks at Amy, and she meets his eyes with a concerned ferocity.
“About the flowers,” she says, jabbing a finger at him before he can protest. “Even if I didn’t watch you just cough one up in my house, I still knew. You’re not a very good liar, Sonic.”
“Did Tails tell you?” Sonic says weakly.
“Yes. I almost didn’t believe him. Then I got a hold of Blaze.”
“How?”
“Sonic,” Blaze says. She releases his palms and lets him put his gloves back on. “You are sick.”
“News to me.”
“Extremely sick. I’ve only ever seen this disease a few times in my dimension, and most of those who had it are now dead.”
He doesn’t really have much to say to that. Amy shuffles closer to him.
“When I was a child,” Blaze continues, “I knew a woman who contracted the disease. She used to deliver fresh bread on her bicycle, until the roses growing in her lungs suffocated the air from her limbs and she could ride no longer.”
“Roses,” Sonic repeats. “How’d she catch it?”
Blaze shakes her head. “She didn’t. They simply grew within her. Then when she died, her family discovered hundreds of unsent love letters hidden within her bread delivery basket. All addressed to the same woman.” She looks at Sonic pointedly. “All kept secret.”
Amy pats his shoulder, but Sonic just blinks. “I, uh. Don’t follow.”
“Sonic,” Amy says, gentle, “is there something you want to tell us?”
“I—“
“Only a few others have been afflicted.” Blaze eyes him sadly. “I thought it was native to my dimension, but apparently not. What I do know is that if left unattended, you will die.”
Sonic shudders. His lungs flutter. “Can someone talk to me in English, please.”
“Who are your letters to, Sonic?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Sonic, we’re trying to help,” Amy says, unhelpfully.
“I’m serious,” he insists. He gets to his feet and tugs at his quills. “I don’t have—I’m not hiding anything. I’m just sick.”
Blaze stands too, her face unreadable. “This is a sickness of love. Someone has planted those flowers inside you, and if you cannot face who, they will suffocate you.”
Sonic squeezes his eyes shut and wraps his arms around himself. “It’s not that. It’s not.”
“Who is it?” Amy’s at his side, an arm around him.
And he didn’t expect to cry, not really. But his throat hurts so badly and he tucks his face into Amy’s shoulder and she lets him shed quiet tears instead of answering.
“Blaze, how do we cure it?” she says.
Blaze’s voice comes from much closer than before. “From what I’ve seen, it’s the admittance of affection to the one you admire.” She pauses. “And its reciprocation.”
“Perfect,” Sonic mumbles into Amy’s sleeve. “Bye, guys.”
“Sonic, I don’t know a single person who isn’t at least a little in love with you.” Amy draws back and holds his shoulders. “You can do it, you big baby.”
“I’d actually rather die this time.”
“You might,” Blaze says. Amy shoots her a glare.
“Who is it?” Amy says again. “I could help you tell her. Or him.”
Sonic thinks about that stupid hand again and then he’s spewing up endless flowers onto the carpet. His vision blacks out.
✿
He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine.
Shadow catches a tank with his bare hands where it was hurtling at Sonic moments prior, and flings it back at the city-block-crushing machine from whence it came. It’s not hot at all.
“What the hell are you doing back here?” Shadow glowers at him, helping him to his feet from behind the car where he’d been cowering.
“Passed out,” Sonic says, trying to inject humor into it but just whimpering instead. “Thanks.”
“You—“ Down the block, the tank explodes. Shadow’s ear twitches, and he skates off without another word.
Sonic clutches his side and leans back into the station wagon. He gasps for air he can’t have. Around him, gunshots ring and a laser fires, but his body just thrums with the vertigo of oxygen deprivation and the warmth of Shadow’s hands on him moments ago.
Everything’s going to be okay. He grits his teeth and peels himself from safety.
Shadow’s already made light work of the smaller bots. Sonic zips past him and skids to a stop behind the beast of a contraption that’s crawling along the sides of the buildings.
Glass rains down onto him and Shadow while they work on tearing the thing apart. Debris crunches under Sonic’s heels as he grinds into the ground to find his balance.
Thankfully, it’s only when the inner mechanism explodes and everything collapses to the ground with screeching finality that Sonic’s lungs rudely interrupt.
He can’t run. There’s something—he’s bleeding, oh. And Shadow has his arm.
“Explain yourself,” he says simply. Sonic fights weakly against his grip.
“There’s nothing to say.” Blood drips from his legs and his mouth. Lavender lays starkly against the white concrete and shattered metal. “Shadow, let me go.”
“Not until you tell me the truth.”
Sonic hangs loosely like a puppet unstrung. Shadow softens his grip, just for a second, but it’s long enough for Sonic to wrench free.
He doesn’t need to run. They’re swarmed by civilians and the concern on Amy’s face almost kills him. But no one asks any pertinent questions.
And no one notices the lavender on the concrete amidst the rest of the damage.
✿
That night, he watches what happens when Shadow doesn’t let go of his hand.
He wakes. He’s practically buried in bloodied flowers.
✿
“You need to tell him, Sonic.” Amy stares blankly down at the bag in Sonic’s hands. “I don’t know how much time you have left.”
“If he knew, he’d just kill me anyway,” Sonic says miserably. “It doesn’t make a difference.”
“You don’t know that! What if he says yes?”
“Then that’d be a day to remember,” he mutters, and vomits up lavender.
✿
Sonic hates using chaos control—hates the jump in his nerves and the rush of energy escaping his body, leaving him limp—but he figures he’s out of time anyway, so whatever.
His back collides with soft, cool grass. The crashing of distant waves from somewhere fills his ears.
Sonic rolls over and gurgles a single flower onto the grass. His vision is spotty, has been for days. His arms and legs burn.
Blaze’s words from before bounce through his muddled head. He thinks of the rose woman and her letters.
He’d started writing them, too. He doesn’t usually enjoy scribbling his feelings and kicking his feet and twirling his quills, but he’s had shit else to do with how bedridden he’s been in the past week.
So he’s written. On scraps of notebook paper, a napkin he found, the tissues Amy left after crying at the flower bag. If any of it saw the light of day, well.
Shadow visited, once. He hovered in the door and didn’t say much, just twisted his hands and pulled the red emerald from his quills. Sonic holds that emerald with him now, along with the few letters he’d brought with him from his bedroom.
The seaside cliff is unfamiliar to him. Sonic draws himself up once the dizziness stops and breathes in the salty air. He unfolds the first letter and sets the emerald next to him.
“Dear Shadow,” he reads. Clears his raw throat. “You’re not gonna read this, but if you do, it’s because I’m gone. So when I’m dead, I’m putting you in charge. But I owe you an explanation. On the off chance this works, here goes nothing.”
He says all of it, every stupid detail and embarrassing, helpless moment written down in ballpoint ink. Descriptions of hands and eyes and the offhand comments he’s obsessed over for months. The sea listens carefully, but doesn’t reply. Even when his ears burn and he glances around to make sure he’s really alone, he says all of it.
The words don’t make him cough. He folds the letter into an airplane when he’s finished and sends it down into the ocean hundreds of feet below.
There’s a flicker of hope in the silence that follows. Blaze was wrong, he thinks wildly. It worked.
When he coughs up a bloody bouquet, he screams through his tears. The sea listens carefully, but doesn’t reply.
✿
Shadow’s grip holds firm where Sonic struggles against it. He’s always been strong, but Sonic’s strength has significantly deteriorated since this whole shitstorm started, so his hands feel like iron around Sonic’s wrists.
“Leave me alone,” Sonic repeats feebly. “I’m gonna be okay.”
“You’re not, and you know it,” Shadow hisses. He twists to dodge Sonic’s assailing knee, and wrestles him to the ground. “Stop being so—“
“So what?” Sonic shoves.
“Stubborn.” Shadow pins his arms to the sand. Above them looms the seaside cliff Sonic’s been sleeping on. He doesn’t remember how they got down here. “Careless, stupid, pathetic, and stubborn. You’re dying, and you know why. You can fix it, but you aren’t.”
Sonic turns his head and shuts his eyes. His lungs rumble. “I’m fine.”
“Amy told me.”
Ice shoots through his veins. Sonic looks up despite himself. “What?”
Shadow settles his weight back once he’s gauged that Sonic won’t escape. He wouldn’t be able to, anyway. All the fight’s been sucked out of him. Sonic sits up and sand sifts through his quills.
“She told me,” Shadow repeats. He crosses his arms, and for once he’s not glaring. His face looks soft, and Sonic coughs.
“What did she tell you?” Panic the color of lavender creeps up his throat.
“She described the nature of your condition.” Shadow’s eyes won’t leave him. Under different circumstances, Sonic would find it comforting. “And she said you are running out of time.”
Sonic’s whole body feels heavy. “So… she didn’t say…”
“Who you’re in love with?” The words in Shadow’s voice send a tiny thrill down Sonic’s spine. “No. I assumed you’d be familiar.”
He laughs a little. It’s weak. “I guess so.”
Shadow studies him silently, still sitting on Sonic’s shoes. Sonic flicks his ears back. He’s so close.
He’s seized by a sudden fear, then, and he opens his mouth to say it, but then Shadow’s red eyes lock onto his again and he can’t do it, he can’t.
“Shads, listen,” he rasps instead. “Just forget it. Forget about everything. It doesn’t matter.”
“Do you hear yourself?”
“I mean it.” He does hear himself, though it’s getting weaker by the second. He shakes. Tears prick his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Shadow frowns. Sand shifts as he leans forward, and Sonic’s gut flutters. He doesn’t have the energy to scramble away.
“You apologize too much,” Shadow murmurs, face mere inches from Sonic’s. Blood crashes in his ears in tune with the waves. “But I apologize too. I lied before.”
What? About what? Sonic tries to say. His voice dies in his throat. Lavender chokes its way around his vocal cords.
Heat climbs to Sonic’s cheeks where Shadow’s hands cup his face. Sonic’s hands fly up to grip his wrists.
Sonic shuts his eyes when Shadow kisses him, though the giddy, bubbling feeling inside him wants to watch. His fingers find Shadow’s quills (soft). It’s real, it’s tactile. His soul decompresses, and he leans his full weight into Shadow’s hands moving to his back.
It’s over too soon. Shadow blinks at him, eyes round and… still apologetic.
Sonic coughs into his elbow, shuddering and violent. Only a single petal escapes, then… no more.
He rests his head on Shadow’s shoulder. Shadow scratches idly at the base of his quills. They listen to the waves crash on the beach.
“You’re not as terrible at kissing as I thought you’d be,” Sonic mumbles, because he can’t handle not making it weird.
He grins when Shadow snorts and it jostles his head. “Funny, you’re worse than I figured.”
Sonic hiccups. He can’t talk about… everything, or he’ll start crying. But. “What did you lie about?”
Shadow inhales slowly. “Amy did actually tell me who it was.”
“What?!” Sonic leans back and shoves at Shadow’s chest. “You little—ugh. You fake. Is that why you came after me?”
Shadow rolls his eyes. “I was going to find you regardless. But yes, knowing that I could solve your problem gave me a greater sense of urgency.”
“‘Course it would, your ego’s the size of Angel Island,” Sonic mutters, then grins. “So… why me?”
“I ask myself that every day,” Shadow sighs. Sonic laughs. “Especially since learning that you’re so irresponsible to the point that you’d rather die than admit your feelings for me.”
“Well, if I knew you’d kiss me, I would’ve said sooner.”
Shadow gives him a look. “You could have just asked.”
“I didn’t think you’d say yes,” Sonic says, sheepish.
“Sonic, I died for you.”
“So? I’d die for you too.”
“Clearly.”
Sonic shrugs. “Got me there.” He bites his lip. “Kiss me again?”
He does. They do for a while. When they separate, Sonic feels hazy like he’s done for the past few weeks, but this time, it’s good. It’s warm.
“So how’d you react when Amy said it was you?” Sonic asks when Shadow’s chaos controlled them back to recognizable terrain. He can’t resist.
Shadow doesn’t drop his hand, but rolls his eyes at Sonic’s grin. “Rationally.”
When Sonic asks later, all Amy says is that watching Shadow shout yes! and scramble out the window was one of the weirdest experiences she’s had in the past year, flower disease included.