I decided to play around with Modern!Knuxicks, and this happened c:

Knuckles huffed, arms glued across his chest as he stood off to the side. Why the hell was he always the one stuck babysitting? Why couldn't it have been anybody else? What did he look like? Dammit…he wanted to be out there, knocking heads until they crack. Not left behind like he was some weakling.

Look after Sticks, Sonic said.

It will be fun, Sonic said.

We'll be back soon, Sonic said.

Ugh, sometimes that hedgehog made his fur crawl. Couldn't Amy look after her own friend? She was old enough to take care of herself, wasn't she?

A sudden thump made the fidgety badger jump and hiss, looking around wildly for the source. Knuckles watched her carefully. He was warned that the girl could get kinda paranoid, but how kinda was this paranoia? She looked like a patient in a mental asylum, the way she couldn't stay still for too long, the way she fumbled around with her fingers, the way her head flipped back and forth from one direction to the next. He's heard about she, like him, practically raised herself in the wild. But, unlike himself, she went…kinda…well. Ya know.

Now that he was thinking about it, he kinda felt bad for her. He didn't know her as well as he probably should – as much as the others did, so it seems – so he had no place to judge her. Any wrong move in his past and he would've winded up just like her.

Knuckles sighed, and the action caused her blue eyes to snap in his direction next. He froze up for a moment before he slowly sidestepped to the left, watching her watch him, as he leisurely bent to pick up the object that had fallen on the floor. "Relax. It's just a book." He held it up for her to see before putting it back on the shelf. She visibly relaxed, but not completely, and continued to look around the room.

He ran his tongue over his teeth. Looks like he was gonna have to socialize. He rocked back and forth on the heels of his shoes before he strolled over to where she sat, still slow and careful as he sat down next to her. She scooted away from him a little, but he didn't care. Nor could he blame her right now. A storm was raging outside, having started half an hour ago. No wonder she's twice as jumpy.

"Relax. I'm not gonna hurt ya," he said.

"I know you're not. I'm just a little –" she hesitated, struggling to find the right words to say.

"Yeah. I know." He rested an arm on his leg.

"Why were we left behind?"

"Because as usual, Sonic thinks he can be big and bad all by himself. He can get killed for all I care."

Sticks sniffed the air, eyeing him oddly now. "You do care."

Now this caught him off guard. "What?"

"I can smell it on you."

Knuckles made a strained humming sound. Right. She was more in touch with her senses than the rest of them. Even more than him. "That's not weird."

"You think I'm crazy?"

"I'm not gonna lie and say no."

Sticks's lips curved up slightly. Huh. She looked kinda nice when she wasn't making him nervous. What? He's seen the horror movies. How was he supposed to know that she wasn't gonna get suddenly possessed by a demon and then eat his brains? Oh wait, that was a zombie –

"What's ya name again?"

"Knuckles."

"Who names their kid Knuckles?"

"Dunno. Who names their kid Sticks?"

"…Touche."

Thunder clapped outside and she jumped.

"Not a fan of thunderstorms, huh."

"Not really. They kinda don't help with the – yanno – situation."

"Tails doesn't like thunderstorms either," Knuckles mused, leaning back against the couch. "He always used to sleep with me when Sonic wasn't around – which was a rare thing, since they're always attached to the hip." He remembered how scared Tails was, how it took him hours to stop trembling, let alone get some sleep. He hated to see the kid cry, even now. The two-tailed fox was like a little brother to him too. Sonic and Tails were both his brothers. Oh no. He was getting sentimental. Stop it, Knux.

Sticks was quiet for a moment before she leaned back too, tucking her bare feet up on the couch. "Hey, Knuckles?"

"What's up?"

"You've lived on that floating island your whole life, right?"

Amy must've told her. "Yeah…?"

"How, uh-" Sticks looked down into her lap. "How did you learn to –"

"Adapt?"

She nodded solemnly, and he knew where she was getting at.

"I probably would've never left that island if Eggman hadn't showed up." Knuckles thought back to the very beginning, what started all of this. How he met Sonic and Tails, and how they've been coming back together ever since. And, ugh, he still wasn't over the time when Eggman destroyed the Master Emerald for his own personal, selfish gain. "The outside world isn't that bad, as long as you know what you're doing."

"You mean…the government isn't out to get ya?"

"Who knows. I'll never really trust 'em anyway, so I don't blame ya."

"This Eggman guy…I don't like 'em."

"None of us do."

"Will I get a chance to scramble 'em?"

Knuckles snickered. "I'd love to see that. Make sure I'm there when you do it."

Sticks seemed to think that was a good idea, because she started smiling. And Knuckles could've sworn that his heart stopped for a second when she did. He's never seen her really smile before. And it was…kinda…cute. Ugh! No! Snap out of it, Knux. The only reason why you're thinking these things is because she's the only female in a mile radius. She's making you the delusional one now.

Yep. That's it. That had to be it.

CLAP!

This one was the loudest of them all, and Sticks jumped again, this time bringing her closer to Knuckles. He didn't know how he ended up this way, but his arms were open in one moment, and in the next they were around her. The badger immediately tensed up as realization dawned on her, and her wide eyes appraised him; the palms of her hands had found their way to his chest during the momentum, and now she looked like she was seconds away from jumping through the window.

"S-Sorry," he muttered, snatching his arms away and avoiding her gaze, feeling his muzzle burn. Great. Just fucking great. He just had to go embarrass himself, didn't he.

His heart was still racing.