Stubborn Candle

Happy 200,000 Words! Members of my discord voted for smut first and exposition second, so here we gooooooooo!

Insert Refresher on Echidna anatomy.

Maybe review Knuckles’ and Rouge’s scene from Chp 9

Rouge prided herself on her self-reliance and her ability to maintain a cool head under pressure. She’d been in a lot of tough situations where escape seemed impossible and death certain. Her instincts and quick wit nearly always prevailed and when they didn’t, Omega would come in like a wreaking ball or Shadow would pull some chaos control bullshit. Even in the most dire of circumstances, she’d made it back in one piece.

This time though.

This time she was certain she wasn’t coming back. She wished she wasn’t coming back, because if she did, Rouge wouldn’t be alone. Her memories of her time integrated with the Hivemind were fading quickly, but she knew it hadn’t hurt or been unpleasant. Quite the contrary. Joining the Hivemind had felt like coming home. And that sickened her.

Rouge was dissolving.

Her stomach coiled and lurched as the chaos energy billowed in the air around them. Knuckles’ body was hot beneath her, a searing, burning inferno. Passages inside her she’d never felt before were crackling like a live wire. Confused neurons blanched at the onslaught and returned pain in fear. Rouge was coming apart on an atomic level, the outside world blowing away in a chaotic wind, the sheet of shimmering orange brightening as a whisp of white intermixed. Even as her existence ebbed away, she clung to the brilliant red body and the attached soul that she loved so dearly.

The world drew in a breath, ready to snuff a white candle.

Strong arms wrapped around her fragile frame. “The servers are the seven chaos.” The burning abated. “Chaos is power.” The wind settled. “Power enriched by the heart.” Rouge opened her eyes and beheld sparkling purple irises trained on her. “The controller is the one that unifies the chaos, you crazy bitch.”

Rouge blinked slowly. Ugh, why did everything taste orange? She was splayed over something warm and safe. Drawing a breath into trembling lungs, she grimaced in pain as she lifted herself from her supine position over Knuckles’ belly. She looked at his face and found their gazes meeting.

“Hey.” Rouge said.

“Hey.” Knuckles returned, looking down his chest at her, through the small forest of Sage’s electrode barbs. He had the audacity to give her a dopey grin the absolute-! The utter-! Rouge was too happy to see his clear eyes to come up with an epithet. She smiled, wide and unqualified.

“Expulsion of intrusive energy is successful.” Sage declared above them, snapping them out of their relieved reverie. One of her ovoid drones lowered. Its manipulators grasped the electrodes and ripped them out of Knuckles’ chest.

“Chaos!” He hissed. Knuckles felt at his chest, brushing the singed fur flat. His gloves, already completely soiled and torn in places, had gained a few speckles of blood.

Rouge snorted. “You are a fucking dumbass, you know that?” The more she came back into herself, the more she felt an electricity jolting under her skin. It was a rush akin to holding a Chaos Emerald. The push to act. The enhanced will to power. Her tail twitched, her wings tensed and relaxed. They were alive. They were alive, gods damn it!

Knuckles smirked, his eyes lidded with, fuck, probably exhaustion, but too bad! Rouge’s mouth was on his, pressing quick, sharp kisses all over his mussed muzzle. “Rouge-!“ He gasped in between pecks, and he tried to push her off.

“Shut up!” Her voice cracked. Searing tears ran down her nose and mixed with their saliva and the lingering taste of chaos energy. “Shut up! I was so scared. Why are you here? How fucking stupid are you, huh?” She hammered a fist onto his chest, sodden with a sickening mix of fluids. Shit, the electrodes.

Knuckles grunted. “Why were you here, huh? See? I can ask stupid questions, too!” His voice was rough and bit cracked. He tried to sit up and shove her off again, but she held firm, beating her wings for balance and extra force. Her man needed to stay on his Chaos-damned back! For medical reasons! Rouge had an acute case of not getting laid in three months.

“Shut the fuck up!” Why was her voice squeaking so much? Rouge pawed at her leaking eyes. She hated him! She hated him so much! Hated him for putting himself in such a dangerous situation. But she couldn’t blame him either. She’d have done the same shit if the roles were reversed. Heroic, honorable fool. Like out of a story book. The kind of man she thought was extinct in this cynical world.

He laughed at her. Music, her favorite song. “You’re really pretty when you’re flustered, you know?”

Rouge sniffed. “Pretty, huh?” She lowered her hands from her face. She’d been in the field for weeks and had been recently marinading in a freaky alien horror soup. Pretty seemed the least accurate descriptor to how she must look.

Knuckles grinned, his purple eyes soft. “The most beautiful thing in the world.” Her chest tightened and Rouge felt herself blush. Stupid girl.

How do you respond to something like that? What do you do when you just survived something like they just had? Did GUN have a protocol for this sort of bullshit?

Whatever, Rouge never followed rules she didn’t agree with anyway.

She lifted her leg over Knuckles and straddled him. She pressed her pert ass, bound tightly in her tactical leggings, back and drug it forward slowly, digging into his abdomen and the appendage concealed within. The motion pulled the fabric into her in the perfect way and Rouge’s abdomen clenched.

His eyes went wide and darted past her. “Rouge, Sage is-“

“Fuck you, I don’t care!” Rouge snapped, regaining Knuckles’ attention. “Fuck her! Let ‘em watch for all I care.” She wanted him more than air, more than diamonds, more than life itself. Strange, residual energy tingled throughout her body, egging her on. They’d escaped a fate worse than death and Rouge wasn’t gonna waste a fucking second embracing freedom! “Now fuck me!”

Knuckles froze, but only for a heartbeat. He snarled, a deep and primal sound, and his pupils blew wide. Rouge’s breath hitched and she felt herself dampen. There was her animal. There was her wild beast! Eat my heart, you fucking savage!

His large fingers fumbled with the clasp on her utility belt as she ripped off her gloves with her teeth. “Gaia damn you, let me!” She snapped at his failure, reaching down and undoing the strap with a smooth motion. She pulled it away and tossed it to the side. She kicked off her boots, and her tactical leggings went next, but she had to break her straddle to get them past her knees.

Rough hands reached up and yanked down the zipper on her black top, releasing her breasts and the silky white fur that ran from her bosom down past her navel. “Rouge…” Knuckles growled low, drawing out her name. He took a pillowy mound in each hand and gave them a solid squeeze.

She repressed a shudder and, with quick, panting breaths, she snapped, “Get your filthy fucking gloves off me!” Knuckles retracted his mitts like he’d touched a lit stove. “Did I give you permission to touch me?” She looked down at the flushed face of her lover with disdain.

“No, ma’am.” Knuckles grinned, wide and hungry, his breath steaming in the cold air.

“Insubordination has to be punished.” Rouge sneered. “The sentence shall be waterboarding.” She pushed off the ground and shot her hips forward. Knees pressing into the cold, hard earth on either side of his head, Rouge lowered the gate to her depths onto his eager maw. She felt the slight cold of the tip of his nose brush the crest of her valley and the heat of his breath sent a shiver up her spine.

Knuckles began with a single long, wet lap and Rouge gasped, her voice already threatening to betray her. A rippling heat flowed up from her sex up her torso and down her legs. Her fingers dug into unruly quills, desperate for something to clutch lest she- lest she-!

Rouge released a long and filthy moan starting so high in her registered Knuckles couldn’t hear it and sliding down the octaves until rested deep in her contralto, finally meeting its end in a needful sigh. Fuuuuuuck, that felt so good! Her wings stretched wide behind her, twitching and beating at the air. Knuckles’ chest vibrated below her ass as the jackass chuckled.

Rouge pulled on his quills and he pushed into her, teasing her entrance with the tip of his staggeringly long tongue (thank Chaos for echidnas, right?) before kissing her sensitive bud. Rouge was about to snarl at him, to declare that she wasn’t made of glass and candy floss, to command him to put some fucking effort into it when Knuckles launched into his meal, hungrily devouring her with licks and nips and kisses.

She gasped and tried to push up away from the onslaught of overwhelming pleasure, but his massive hands clapped over her quivering thighs and held her down. Shit! She was locked in! The greedy motherfucker! Every urgent, wet slide across her valley sent a white flag up her spine, desperately trying to convince her to surrender to the bliss. Rouge refused to give in. This was a fight for life over death and she wasn’t going to-

She whined and dug her claws into his scalp. It had been too long. Knuckles’ lips eagerly suckled at her sensitive spot and the tip of his ungodly long tongue tested her entrance. Her defenses were lazy, lulled into complacency by months of nothingness. Rouge didn’t stand a chance.

Rouge had almost lost him.

White crackled across her vision as the pressure built. She scratched and she hissed and she whipped her wings against the cold air to break free, but the echidna brute held her firm, determined to force her into ecstasy. “Dumb…stupid…idiot!” She gasped as the rolling pressure built.

The seal? Broken.

The itch? Scratched.

The dam? Broken.

The defenses? Breeched.

Would she have joined him in the darkness?

Rouge arched her back and threw her head back as she shrieked in the ultrasonic as the orgasm ripped through her. It stole her breath, and she was a boneless puppet against the earthquake of pleasure that scrambled her into nothingness. The event only pushed Knuckles to sup upon her all the more enthusiastically.

She reemerged from nirvana to the sharp, cold sting of overstimulation and that just pissed her off. Her thighs were still held firm, so she had no leverage there. Her fingers dug into his quills, pulling and trying to find scalp to scratch. “Let o-ahh!” She gasped as the long, wet appendage slithered past her lips and directly into her. The assault on her front gates abated as the barbarians invaded her secret places.

She loved this man.

Rouge’s thighs quivered, breath uneven and ragged, and she had no idea what to do with her hands, mindless pulling and pawing at anything in reach. Oh, how she missed and loved hated this! It had been too fucking long. How long? Two…three…fuck it numbers didn’t have meaning any more. Too long! And last time had just been rushed make-up shower sex anyway. Worthless in the grand scheme of things, but this-

Knuckles’ tongue undulated inside her, tickling her in ways his massive member couldn’t. It bent, bracing itself against her hind wall and pushed into her inner sweet spot while his nose nuzzled from the outside, effectively double teaming her pleasure centers. Gods, how could one man be so stupid and so clever at the same time?

She was a selfish woman.

Rouge failed to contain her screams, and it only riled her echidna further. He was winning. If he was winning, then she was losing and she couldn’t have that. Again, Rouge tried to push upwards and failed. Fine. Fine, just fine. His tongue wasn’t the only flexible length present.

Rouge leaned back, lying flat over Knuckles’ torso until her head lay on his tented knees. The motion rotated her pelvis out of his grasp, pressed her toned ass cheeks against his snout (yes, exposing her other entrance to stimulation, but she’d take the risk to gain the upper hand), and made the front of her thighs burned with the stretch. Reaching across herself, she ran a nail down the length of his bulging pouching.

The world could go to hell, for all she cared.

Rouge felt his abdominal muscles clench and Knuckles released a pathetic moan, his voice octaving upwards. His length emerged and Rouge smirked. She was going to make him feel so good, the bastard. Still on her back, she took his third leg in both hands and began stroking it tantalizingly slowly, gingerly gracing the tight flesh with her nails. She craned her neck and ran her tongue along the base and stretched slit, leaving a steaming trail in the frigid air.

“Fuck, R-rouge!” Knuckles bucked in her hold and his grip on her lightened as he went to fist the cold ground. Crackles of red energy sparked in his coat. The agent exploited the opening, twisting onto her knees. “Gack!” He grunted as Rouge shoved her ass into his chin as she scooted back.

She was a thief at heart.

Rouge grasped Knuckles’ member with both hands and popped her mouth over the elaborate head. She swirled her tongue around it and lapped up the beads of precum forming. He tried to stifle another shrill and needful moan. That’s right, motherfucker, your turn. Rouge pumped with her hands and took a series of deep breaths. It had been a while, but she’d recently had some sort of alien whatever-the-hell down her throat, so this should be easy.

Filling her lungs with air, Rouge then inhaled her lover. “Chaos! Rouge!” He slammed his fists against the earth with a thud! and his hips bucked, thrusting himself deeper. She pressed down (lightly) with her sharp teeth to remind him to cut that shit out and he mewled so sweetly she had to press her thighs tightly together. Shit, this man! The tip pressed against her uvula and the thin flesh protecting her throat.

She’d steal back what was hers.

Taking a last breath through her nose and relaxing her throat, Rouge took Knuckles in to the hilt. “L-like that!” He cried. She felt his frantic pants under her. Rouge held still for a moment and then hummed. Knuckles choked and swore. The muscles of his legs vibrated with a desire to fuck into her. The corners of her stretched lips curled upward, self-satisfied.

Slowly she pulled back, relishing the sound of her name on his lips. Once she was nearly free, she rushed back on. She set a devilish pace, in and out, in and out again. Rouge adored his mindless blathering, the taste of his swollen manhood, the tears pricking her eyes, and the pain in her throat as she abused herself on him. This was her stupid, brilliant, dopey, wonderful idiot and she was going to ruin him.

When his breath was coming heavy and ragged, Knuckles cried, “Enough!” His massive hands wrapped around her hips and pulled her clean off so suddenly Rouge was barely able to pull her teeth away before the length was extracted from her throat. She gasped in air.

He twirled her like she weighed nothing until they faced one another. Rouge leered down at him, saliva coating her lips and chin, his stupid mug contorted in a snarl and his purple eyes blown wide with pent up, animalistic desire. “Get on.” He growled, dangerously low and deep in his throat.

A shiver ran down her spine at the command. Holy shit! She was getting what she pretended to not want. All the teasing and prodding. The snipes and goading. The animal beneath all the control, the son-of-a-bitch that won’t treat her like she was made of glass. Still, she had to be certain. “Who gave you permission to speak?”

He gnashed his teeth. “Woman, I said get on!” Rouge’s breath caught as another shiver ran down her spine. Fuck that was intoxicating.

She rose and quickly scrambled to position herself. As she began to sink over the head, they moaned in chorus. Knuckles threw an arm over his eyes. “How do you do this to me? Agh!” He grunted as she lifted sharply and then began her slow descent once more. “You drive me insane.” He whined.

Every inch was a new wave of ecstasy. Between Knuckles’ oral ministrations and her own excitement, the only resistance was the immaculate friction between her natural topography and his smooth girth. Her wings extended behind her, thin membrane vibrating from the tremors running through her.

Tears welled in her eyes as she finally settled into the base, their hips connecting. It wasn’t fair. She blinked and tears rolled down her cheeks. It wasn’t fucking fair that the world couldn’t seem to keep its shit together long enough for them to breathe. Here she was surrounded by giant ass robots and about a kilometer from a colony of flesh-eating monsters. Epic lay, all things considered.

Fuck it. If the world wouldn’t give them a Gaia-damned second, she’d steal it. They were the heroes. They were the winners. They could make the rules. They could be happy in the shadow of their enemies.

Rouge began to move, slow rolls of her hips. “I would have joined you, you know.” The tears continued to flow.

“W-what?” Knuckles moved his arm away from his face. His eyes were unfocused, cloudy with lust, probably. The bafflement was cute on his face in a stupid sort of way.

“I know it wasn’t you saying those things, but I didn’t care.” Rogue grit her teeth, but the tears wouldn’t stop. Stupid girl, never learning anything. He reached up, cupping her cheeks, and wiped away her tears. “Fuck the world, right?” She choked. “I’d have gone back into the Hive just have the chance to be with you.”

“Rouge…” He whispered.

She shook her face free of his hands. “I know, right? I’ve always only been out for myself. I take whatever I want.” She looked down, unable to meet his gaze anymore.

“Rouge-“ He said.

“And I want you!” Rouge pressed her eyes closed, hot, stupid, treacherous tears falling like rain.

“Rouge!” Knuckles rolled forward and wrapped his arms around her midriff. Rouge mewled at the sudden change in angle and how the length pressed into her. Her eyes opened and he found him looking at her with sharp determination. In smooth motion, he stood. Rouge gripped the sides of his chest tightly with her calves, her wings beating to give her balance.

He squared his stance and wrapped his hands under her hind. “Oh, shit.” Rouge gasped. Knuckles raised her and lowered her like she was weightless, setting a ridiculous pace and giving her absolutely no control as he fucked into her like a toy. Any words left in her throat were shattered as she gasped and groaned.

Rouge clenched her teeth. Her nails dug into his shoulders. This bastard was absolutely not getting a second orgasm out of her before he nutted. That was not happening! But fuck, that was an ask. Her legs and spine were quickly becoming jelly. Her forehead leaned against his, their clouded lustful eyes looking into one another and their hot breath intermingling as they panted.

This man. This stupid, fucking man. She hated him. She loved him. She hated how much she loved him.

Her head lost its balance against his and her neck hadn’t the strength to spare, so she found her nose pressed into the crook of his neck. He reeked of a million shitty things, battle and alien sludge and near death sweat, but below were the wonderful earthy tones of paradise. Cinnamon and eucalyptus and orchids.

With every deadlift of her body, she felt the muscles of his shoulders ripple and heard the vibrations of his snorts and grunts. Her legs had long lost purchase on his sides and dangled uselessly as he rutted into her. Another of those little red sparks spidered through his fur and she felt the tingle under her skin intensify in response.

“Not...giving in…you bastard.” She gasped into his neck. Knuckles chuckled and sped up. Rouge tried to smother a moan into his ridiculously toned shoulder. Her nose twitched as a crackle of red light tickled it.

“Wings.” He warned and Rouge spread her wings wide to her sides. She cried out as he slammed her back into metal foot of a Super Badnik, simultaneously cracking her head back and plowing into her deepest recesses. Pleasure and pain swirling with love and irritation into a messy smoothie in her mind.

“Asshole!” Rouge clenched her insides as hard as she could, really bore down on that yard stick Knuckle called equipment. Knuckles choked and halted. He glared at her and she smirked back at him.

He began pumping again, but his pace was slow. Languid. Teasing. And yet-! Rouge bit her lip, drawing a bead of blood.

“You never shut up.” Knuckles growled, his body steaming in the cold, dry air. He slid in and out of her, winding her tighter and tighter like a clockwork doll. Much further and she’d break. “You’re always on me about something.” Rouge arched her back against the Badnik. She was at a loss for words other than his name. No other syllables existed in her universe.

“You drive me crazy!” He moaned. “You’re selfish and a hypocrite.” His thrusts intensified. “Greedy and needy.” Rouge was unraveling, quickly losing any grasp on reality. Why was he talking? He needed to stop talking. “Stubborn and…beautiful.” Shut up. “Tenacious. Sharp as a knife.” Shut up! “And…ah~ you care so much no matter what you say.” Please stop! Her heart was going to burst!

Rouge hissed. She wanted to present an eloquent argument concerning their romantic engagement (laced with about fifty percent profanity by volume) but she lunged forward and bit him in the neck instead. “Gah! F-fuck!” Knuckles dropped his rhythm, asynchronous jerks taking over.

Hehe, that did it.

The warrior stumbled as his hips bucked uncontrollably into her. “D-damn it, Rouge!” He strained to hold back his impending orgasm. Rouge retracted her teeth and ran her tongue on a long, slow, tantalizing trip up his neck, along his jaw line, and up his face to his temple. His fur was filthy with sweat, dirt, and fuck all else and Rouge tasted every bit of it.

“Come for me, darling.” She whispered into his ear and squeezed the ever-loving hell out of his magnificent dick deeply entrenched inside her cunt. “I need you to fill me up, right. fucking. now.”

Knuckles gasped and wrenched out of her nearly to the tip. Like pulling the starter on a chainsaw, Rouge’s spine alighted with ecstatic tremors, and she realized that she, too (oh shit), was on the precipice. He slammed her down while he jutted his hips upward, speed and friction igniting them both simultaneously.

Rouge screamed, a long moan of relief and release, her sharp nails digging bloody trenches into his back. The tsunami of pleasure dashed her on the rocks of ecstasy, and she prayed she’d be marooned ever more. Wave after wave breaking her into finer and finer debris. Soon, she was just dust drifting in the wind of blissful nirvana.

“Rouge!” Knuckles released a low guttural bellow, a series of breathy chuffs, as he emptied himself into her depths with a rapid set of shallow thrusts. “Rouge, Rouge, Rouge!” He gasped her name over and over again, a mantra, a claxon, a hymn writ large and deep and permanent, leading her back from nothingness into the light.

They panted and steamed in the silence of the afterglow. Rouge clung tightly to him and his arms wrapped protectively around her. Slowly he knelt and helped her disengage from his softening member. Her legs twitched and could bear no weight, so Rouge clung tightly as Knuckles cradled her.

“Rouge, it was me.” He said finally, his eyes hazy with something…nice.

“What?” Rouge blinked. She was exhausted. Whose idea was it to tussle so soon after a life-or-death struggle? Knuckles’ probably, the horny idiot.

He shifted them so he could nuzzle her cheek. “It was me who said all those things.”

She leaned back and looked into his eyes. “You’re talking about after Slimy Creepy McCreeperson gave the most fucked up speech about emotional intelligence ever?”

Knuckles huffed dryly. “Sure, yeah, I wasn’t exactly in my right mind, but I still meant it.” He looked deep into her eyes. “I love you, Rouge. I want to spend my life with you. I-I don’t know how long that’ll be at this point,” He shook his head, “but however much time we have left, I want to spend it with you.”

When she didn’t respond, he continued. “I do want to try to make Angel Island a place you’ll love.”

“You idiot.” She chuckled, her words having no bite. “I already love Angel Island. You know why?”

Knuckles snorted. “Because that’s where the Master Emerald is?”

“No!” She slammed a weak fist into his chest. Fuck, she couldn’t see with these stupid tears in her eyes. “Because that’s where you are!”

He leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers. Rouge closed her eyes, letting herself relax into him. It was…nice to be gentle…just this once. Her hands came up and she cupped his jaw, holding him in place. Nice to not fight. To be on the same page for once. To admit they wanted the same thing. They pushed closer together, deepening the kiss.

Rouge felt a spark between them, like a literal jolt of something, not just some sentimental wishy-washy metaphorical shock. Her brow creased and she pulled back. Little red crackles arched through the white crescent on his chest. “Okay, what the hell is up with that?”

Knuckles blushed and averted his gaze, adorably abashed. “I can’t stand the idea of losing you again and not being able to find you, so I’ve been…” He cut himself off, frowning. “I don’t know if it’s working because your chaos energy levels are so low.”

Rouge groaned. More chaos energy bullshit, great. “Spit it out, charmer. What are you talking about?”

His brow creased and he looked away. Again, cute as fuck, but also annoying as hell. “I’m trying to form a chaotic bond with you, like what Sonic and Shadow have.”

Rouge’s eyes went wide. Her post-sex muddled brain tried to piece together the implications of what he was failing to explain clearly. “W-what? Like when Shadow could tell the Doctor was torturing Sonic?”

He nodded. “Also, it was my chaos energy that chased off that black energy. If…I needed to that again, I want to know as soon as possible.” She reached for his face and ran her thumb along the fur of his cheek bone. Knuckles placed his hand over hers and nuzzled into it. “I don’t think it’s working. But if it did…would that be okay with you?” Oh, that’s what he was bashful about, the cutie. Such a gentleman.

Rouge smirked, refusing to give up any more opportunities to tease the big, strong echidna. “Kinda late to ask me now, don’t you think?”

He snorted, releasing her hand. “Right.”

“Idiot.” She said lovingly, leaning forward to kiss him once again. He hugged her close and they shared a series of soft, tender kisses, noses touching and gracing across cheeks.

When they were done, Knuckles grinned, coyly. “In my defense, you didn’t give me much of a chance to ask before you jumped me.” Rouge pretended to look offended. “I believe you told me to shut the fuck up?”

Rouge’s eyes went wide and she placed an affronted hand on her chest. “That doesn’t sound like me. How can you accuse of such unladylike behavior?”

Knuckles chuckled. “More than once if I recall correctly.”

“We really need to get your ears checked.” Rouge retorted. They laughed. “But yes,” She sighed, “As long as I can use it to find you too, then you have my permission to do whatever ridiculous chaos magic you’re looking to perform.”

“I’ll teach you how.” Knuckles smiled. “That is if you think-“

A flash of red light made them jump. “If you have completed your coitus,” Sage suddenly appeared and both Mobians cursed. “It would be prudent for you to move away from this location. I will be commencing conflagration of the last known location of the Black Arms and the surrounding territory.”

Don’t worry. Sage is always watching.