Chapter Text
It came to Maddie’s attention one day that she didn’t know her boys’ birthdays.
She’d been in the middle of a client related matter at the vet clinic when it occurred to her, when she’d noted down the client’s birthday and found herself rooted on the spot for a minute or two before she snapped herself out of it and got on with the task. Of all the places to space out. She checked Jasper’s teeth, gave him his worm shot, trimmed his claws, and handed him back to his owner who appreciated it.
Sonic’s birthday she knew as the end of June, or the first time he set foot on planet Earth. He didn’t remember any special day back on Mobius, and he’d been here long enough that he was happy to have his arrival date as his birthday. Miles had mentioned that he was born when the first dredges of snow occurred in some parts of their world, which Maddie took to mean sometime in November according to the human calendar.
That just left Knuckles.
Knuckles had opened up since they had taken him in after their battle in Hawaii, but there was still a long way to go with the echidna. When Tom asked Sonic that night, at dinner, what he wanted to do for his birthday this year, he had lifted his head a little when the hedgehog started gushing about everything he had thought about doing before looking back down at his dinner. Sonic let himself take a breather as he pushed the broccoli around on his plate, and the echidna spoke in a quiet voice.
“What’s a birthday?”
The entire table stopped and looked at him, and Tom scratched the back of his neck. “It’s, uh, it’s the day you were born. It’s usually a big deal during your formative years and family gathers to celebrate milestones.” Knuckles blinked at him with some confusion before Tom cleared his throat. “It might be a different deal in your culture. Uh…”
“Oh. You mean a day sign.” A lightbulb seemed to go off over Knuckles’ head as he picked at his vegetable medley. “I don’t know how they used to be celebrated, but my kind wouldn’t really celebrate a birth, just give offerings to Chaos and Gaia. When the child went through a series of trials at a certain age, they were declared a warrior and an adult.”
“You didn’t do anything during the years between?” Maddie gently pushed, which received a shake of his head.
“Dad…I mean, Loke…he said the Master Emerald was more important.”
Of course. Of fucking course. Maddie swore everything she heard about this man the more she hated him. Tom sipped at his water awkwardly, but Sonic’s excitement was palpable as he practically vibrated in his seat bouncing up and down so much. “Does this mean I get to plan your first every birthday party?!”
“Why would you want to?” Knuckles seemed genuinely surprised that the hedgehog would want to do such a thing.
“Why wouldn’t I want to plan my little brother’s birthday?”
“Who says you’re the oldest?” Tails chimed in, looking up from his contraption that Maddie hadn’t managed to get him to put down at the table. “For all we know Knuckles is older than you.”
“Blasphemy,” Sonic gasped, dramatically placing a hand to his chest as he staggered back in his seat. “I’m clearly the oldest, I got here first.”
“But that doesn’t mean anything in Mobian years,” the kit pointed out, picking up one of his chicken nuggets and munching on it while Sonic continued to protest. “Since the rotation of our planet is different compared to Earth, I can deduct that you might actually be…”
“Let’s just stick to Earth years,” Tom interjected, using his free hand to lower Miles’ device, and motioning for him to eat before turning his attention back to Knuckles. “When’s your…uh, day sign?”
Knuckles tilted his head and seemed to think as he ate, chewing thoughtfully. “It’s about a month and a half after midwinter, when the water bearer lowers her cup into the river on Angel Island. I was born sixteen seasons ago.”
Maddie did the math in her head, wondered briefly what he meant by water bearer before realizing he meant the sign Aquarius (one of her co-workers was a tea-chugging armchair astrologist and had briefly tried to tell her about star signs once). “So that means you’re seventeen in…a week.”
“Aww man, you are such an old man,” Sonic teased, nudging Knuckles with his foot, and receiving a quick kick to the shin in retaliation. “Don’t worry about a thing, I got this. Your first birthday party is going to be a blast.”
Somehow Maddie was unsure.
xxxxxx
The attic was a mess of scrunched up pieces of paper, Sonic having missed the waste basket several times as he laid on his back on his bed, feet kicked up at the pillow end and a pad and pen in hand. He was supposed to be doing something else, but he only had five more days to plan Knuckles’ first birthday and, well, he wasn’t good at planning things. Sonic was more of a do first, think later person. He clicked the end of his pen, earning a groan from Tails who was over by his workspace.
“Do you have to do that?”
“Hey, you think Knux would like a bouncy castle?”
There was a hiss of electricity as Tails lowered his wielders, lifting his goggles to look at him with a raised eyebrow. “What makes you think Knuckles would want a bouncy castle?”
“Well, it’s just a thought.” Sonic crossed out the words and ripped the piece of paper off the writing pad he was using, tossing it haphazardly and letting the pad flop onto his face, groaning. “Why is he so hard to think of?”
The kit lowered his tools to the bench and got up, picking up a nearby piece of screwed up paper. It was in Sonic’s chicken scratch scrawl, but the words were clear, and he sighed a little in exasperation. “Did you think that maybe Knuckles wouldn’t want the same kind of things that you would want at a birthday party?”
He tilted his head in a way that made the paper fall off his face to the side, looking at Tails as he sat down on the bed next to his head. “Whaddaya mean?”
Tails shrugged slightly, putting the piece that he’d picked up down and leaned back on his hands. “It just seems to me like you want to give him the birthday party you never had, but did you ask Knuckles if he actually wants to do anything?”
Sonic’s ears flicked back as he sat up, curling his legs into a sitting position as Tails turned so that hey were facing the head of the bed together. “Why wouldn’t he? He’s been alone just as long as I have and I gotta tell ya, mom and dad threw a blast for my last birthday before you guys got here…” Okay, maybe he was overstating his first birthday in his new family, but Maddie and Tom had let him pick the movie and his birthday cake, and had made sure that he knew he was loved. His fingers scratched at his knee, picking out a stray quill that was molting out.
“Well yeah, that’s the thing. He’s been alone just as long as you have, but he’s not like you, or me for that matter.” Miles leaned slightly against his brother, tails sweeping behind him as he stared at nothing in particular. “I don’t think he’d like anything huge. He said they don’t usually celebrate birthdays in his culture.”
“What do foxes do?” Sonic asked curiously, and Tails shrugged.
“I lived at an orphanage on South Island when my parents abandoned me. When you’re surrounded by a lot of kids you tend to get left out in the cold, especially if you have anything that makes you…different.” His ears flicked but he stopped himself from expressing anything about it. He and Sonic had talked a few times, sleepless nights when both of them lay awake unable to do anything but think. “I don’t know anything about foxes in general.”
“If it helps, I don’t know what hedgehogs do. I was raised by an owl and then I was sent here.” Sonic’s throat dried as he talked about Longclaw, finger picking another stray quill out of his leg. He was still uncomfortable talking about her at length, but he’d been getting better thanks to the local therapist that Maddie and Tom took him to see. “We’re a bit messed up, huh?”
“But we’re still family, right?” Tails worried his lower lip, now looking a bit concerned before he was cuffed around the shoulders.
“You bet, buddy. You said you went to where the echidnas used to be before. What did you find out?”
“Not a huge lot of cultural things,” he said, appreciating the change in tone of their conversation. Tails gently extracted himself from Sonic’s arm, getting up to move over to his desk and find his device before returning and plopping himself down on the edge of Sonic’s bed, feeling it shift when the older Mobian came over to join him. “Mostly dates, something about a water god.” Opening up files, he shifted through the photos that he’d taken, showing Sonic the moss-covered walls of the Mystic Ruins. “I said before that I can’t translate Ekidnian.”
Sonic hummed as he leaned over Tails’ shoulder, curious – he’d never been anywhere on Mobius other than Longclaw’s sanctuary and the land surrounding it as soon as he knew how to use his speed. “There really is nothing left of them, is there?”
Tails shook his head, pausing at a particular picture before shutting his device off and letting it rest in his lap. “Just Knuckles and his dad, and whatever they left behind. I first learned about the echidnas as a mythical race, when the sisters used to tell us stories at the orphanage before bedtime. Whatever was left at Mystic Ruins was long gone.”
Sonic drummed his fingers against his thigh in thought before he pointed at Tails’ device. “I think I saw something in those. Can you flip back through?” A noise of confirmation left the kit as he turned it back on and handed it over to Sonic, who thumbed his way through the photos that Tails had taken on his venture, letting out a sound when he found what he was looking for. “I think I have an idea.” He handed it back and stood from his bed, walking over to his dresser where he opened a drawer and pulled out his ring pouch. There were precious few left, but it would be worth it to see the look on Knuckles’ face. “You comin’?”
“We should tell mom and dad,” Tails interjected as he stood, quickly grabbing his knapsack, and fitting his device into it.
“We’ll be an hour tops. They won’t miss us.”
xxxxxx
“Sonic and Miles Wachowski where have you been?”
Maddie took one look at their wet fur, mud-covered shoes and the stray sticks peeking out and nearly had a conniption. Instead, she sighed and turned to get a couple of old towels from the laundry room, telling them to wait where they were before they tracked mud through the house.
Tails set down his knapsack and gave his brother a deadpan stare. “They won’t miss us, huh?” he asked, voice a sarcastic drawl as he toed his sneakers off.
“I’m not used to people worrying about where I am,” Sonic admitted, doing the same with his own and wriggling his toes when they were free. Maddie came back over and promptly dumped the towels on their heads, sighing and placing a hand to her forehead as she massaged her temples, turning to pace a little.
“You left no note. What if Robotnik had come and gotten you while we were out?”
“The house would be in a bigger mess?” the hedgehog suggested unhelpfully, peeking out from under his towel to see her raise her hands and give a frustrated noise, and he realized she had been worried. Sonic shifted back a little, toes turning inward as he bit his bottom lip. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think we’d be gone so long.”
Maddie turned her head to look at her two sons over her shoulder and her expression softened when she saw the look on his own face. She squatted so that she was eye level to them, taking hold of one of Sonic’s shoulders and one of Miles’. “A little note, a warning, next time, okay hon?” She squeezed them tight, pressing a kiss to their foreheads. “I was worried, especially since you had Miles with you.”
“He saved my bacon a ton of times,” Sonic responded, watching Miles pick sticks and leaves out of his twin tails. “But I have a very good reason for why we were gone.” Maddie gave him a raised eyebrow as she motioned for him to continue, as though he would be able to talk his way out of this one. He inhaled and draped his towel around his shoulders, hands gesturing fast. “All my ideas were bad so we mayyyy have gone to Angel Island to find something for Knuckles’ birthday.”
Maddie’s heart melted and she sighed. “Alright, you’re off the hook this time, Mister Wachowski. Why don’t I get you guys some juice and you can tell me all about it.”
“Is Knuckles around?” Tails asked, voice cautious as they followed her into the kitchen, glancing to the side as though the echidna could jump out at any moment.
“Tom took him with him on an errand at the sheriff’s department,” she said, kicking the refrigerator door back and grabbing a couple of glasses from the countertop, setting them in front of Sonic and Tails, the latter of whom brightened.
“That’s great. We can fill you in on my idea.”
xxxxxx
The morning of February 2nd was like any other.
He hadn’t been lying when he said that they didn’t celebrate birthdays in echidna culture. He might not have grown up with other echidnas but there were manuscripts and hieroglyphs that told him of his people, of the things that they did. His father didn’t make any mention of it certainly, though now that he could see without rose-colored glasses his father didn’t make any mention of a lot of things when he asked him.
Knuckles had been aware the first time he’d hatched. He had vague memories of moonlight and torchlight shining through the cracks of his egg, of chao cooing around him and bigger hands picking him up, shooing them away, a blanket wrapped around him. Whoever had held him was blocked from his memory, but the color of peach was a comfort.
He did his morning stretches, used the wash basin in the basement to clean his face and comb any loose quills out of his dreadlocks. Then he headed upstairs.
It was quiet, but that was no surprise. Knuckles was an early riser, always had been, and he had grown to appreciate the quiet before the dawn. Pulling several of his dreadlocks back to tie them into a ponytail, he stopped in the kitchen, noticing what looked like torch lights outside in the backyard. There was a second’s pause before he recognized familiar shapes in the light, and he opened the door, stepping outside.
The garden path was lined with fire light, torches standing on either side of the pathway, lighting the way to the sun peeking over the horizon. Tails yawned by Sonic’s side, barely awake, and the hedgehog practically vibrated in place when he saw him, waving at him and getting Maddie and Tom’s attention towards him as well. Tom was dressed in his sheriff uniform, Maddie holding a small wooden bowl of some kind and smiling at him. Ozzie panted off to the side, tail wagging and dressed in a bowtie.
Knuckles would have thought it weird a few months ago how much his insides swelled and quelched when he looked at these people. The two Mobians were his brothers, no doubt about that, but there was still part of him that refused to speak of the humans as though they were his parents, even though they had been nothing but to him since Sonic had dragged him for dinner that one night. His mother still existed as long as he lived and his father…well, he didn’t want to dwell on Loke.
“What’s going on?” he asked, fingers fidgeting a little as he stepped closer, tail twitching behind him. He was cautious – was this some weird human ritual he hadn’t heard about until now? Maddie had mentioned birthdays a week ago or so, and he hadn’t thought about it or heard mention of it since.
“Well, we thought –“ “It was my idea,” Sonic interjected Maddie with a whine. “– that since it’s your birthday today, we would do something that’s important to your culture.” Noticing his raised eyebrow, she continued, placing a hand on the hedgehog’s shoulder to placate him for a moment. “You said that when echidnas were of a certain age, they would be put through a series of trials.”
Knuckles startled, his eyes widening slightly. He hadn’t even had time to prepare anything… Tom interrupted his thoughts, raising a hand from where he had his cupped in front of him. “We thought that since you’d already been through so much, those were trials enough. Being tricked into fighting Sonic and Miles, having your trust taken from you, being away from your home in a foreign world…and saving our kids time and time again, protecting Green Hills. We all agree that it’s more than enough to say you’re a warrior that your ancestors would be proud of.”
Bringing up his history with Robotnik was a bit of a sore spot still, and he raised his hand to rub at his arm, suddenly feeling a little awkward. He hated himself for how much he’d been willing to believe a stranger’s words, without even trying to sense the Master Emerald’s energy. The last sentence out of Tom’s mouth made him shake his head, feeling his stomach twist. “I’ve done so much wrong too,” he said, looking at them unwillingly. “How can you even say they’d be proud of me?”
Tom gave him a look with his eyebrows raised, then smiled at him. “Because I am. Because we are. We’re proud of you, Knuckles, and we’d be more than happy to have you be part of our family.”
His heart flipped, and he sucked in a breath, like he’d been knocked off his feet. Sonic grinned off to the side, supporting Tails who snoozed next to him despite himself. The hedgehog nudged him with his foot, causing Knuckles to stumble forward a little as he looked at him, frowning. “Go on,” he said to him, inclining his head to where Tom was putting his hands into the bowl Maddie held, his hands coming away with what looked like white paint.
He swallowed and stepped forward, stepping over to Tom who turned his attention to him again, Maddie stepping back next to her husband with a soft smile of encouragement. Knuckles puffed himself up, letting out a huff of air as he stared at the male human. “Knuckles, you’ve proven yourself, your strength, your heart and your humility over and over again. You’ve driven evil out of our home, out of our town. Do you promise to keep Green Hills at peace?”
“I…” Some part of him fought with himself to keep from swallowing his tongue. “I promise.” He closed his eyes, feeling Tom’s thumbs wipe around the bottom of his eyes and his chin, a finger press to his forehead to streak upwards. Maddie smoothed paint against his dreadlocks and around, marking his arms in an elaborate pattern he’d seen before in hieroglyphs. How crossed his mind to question, but he didn’t ask, throat dry. Knuckles opened his eyes, glancing to the two humans who looked at him with such warmth he didn’t know it was possible.
“Then I hereby welcome to the family Knuckles Wachowski.” Tom took the hat resting on his head and put it on top of Knuckles’, the wide brim slightly obscuring them from view before it was fitted properly, and his hand dropped to the echidna’s shoulder, squeezing it as Maddie’s found his other like they both had done that night his father showed up. “Make us proud, son.”
That one word had so much meaning behind it but coming from Tom, it made him look at them differently and he swallowed deeply. “I’ll try.”
Sonic let out a whoop and Ozzie barked in response, waking Tails from where he had been sleeping and giving a mumbled “is it over already?” as he woke. The hedgehog practically bowled him into their parents (parents, plural. So weird) and he looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Did you like it?” Sonic gushed, unable to help grinning from ear to ear as Tom and Maddie released him from their touch, turning to talk quietly with each other.
“How on Mobius did you even…?”
“Wellllll…”
Their neighbors nearby were woken by the shrill shrieking of Knuckles yelling at his brother for setting foot on Angel Island, the sound of laughter from the rowdy Wachowskis, Ozzie’s barking, and a car alarm going off. They would later receive a card in the mail and an apology letter, letting them know that the Wachowskis had once again welcomed another into the family, and Carl rolled his eyes with a grunt as he slammed his mailbox shut.
Well that had been obvious to everyone in Green Hills, but it was about time.