Chapter Text
Sonic and Shadow both quickly discovered that Slick wasn’t their only enemy in the forest. As they trudged along, every step slow and faltering, it was clear they needed to make a better plan. It was almost like the world was trying to make their trek as difficult as possible. Shadow’s mystery illness had grown worse by the hour and now every breath was a wheeze. His lungs itched and weighed heavily in his chest, as if they had turned into lead. He had to resist the coughs that were constantly clawing their way up his throat.
As they were walking along, Shadow accidentally inhaled too sharply and he couldn’t stop himself. He coughed once into his sleeve and kept his arm there, wrestling to control himself before any petals came up. Sonic stopped when he realised Shadow wasn’t following. When he stumbled over to help, Shadow pushed him away angrily.
Sonic groaned in frustration. “Come on! I know something is wrong! Let me help.” He held his hands out in front of him, as if he wanted to hold on to something. Shadow just regained his breath and waited a few seconds before replying.
“I can look after myself.” Shadow went to keep moving but Sonic stopped him by grabbing his shoulders. Shadow stiffened.
“I’m tired too, so let’s take a break, huh?” The blue hedgehog smiled sympathetically and Shadow felt a flare of irritation. Which was only followed by the itch in his chest growing.
Without letting him argue, Sonic pushed Shadow towards the bottom of a tree and sat him down, before joining him. Shadow wheezed and leaned his head back against the rough bark of the trunk. Maybe a rest wasn’t a bad idea.
Sonic sighed loudly and hugged his stomach. “Aw man, I could really go for a chilli dog right now,” he said sadly. Shadow ignored him.
They had been walking along the river for hours now. The sun had just begun to come up, but that didn’t make their journey any easier. The tree roots seemed to grow up out of the ground and trip them. The terrain became rockier with more slopes and inclines as the river wound its way up a mountain. On top of that, all throughout the night, they were plagued by strange noises from within the forest. Who knew what else was stalking them. And Shadow had to admit that Sonic was right… In his own way. They had no idea how long they were going to be out here without food. At least the river sorted out their water problem, but they had to be prepared to leave it if the need ever arose.
Shadow sighed unhappily and Sonic glanced over at him from where he was resting lazily. Didn’t he ever worry?
As if reading Shadow’s thoughts, the blue hedgehog slapped his shoulder lightly. “Quit worrying, will ya? We got this.”
Shadow crossed his arms over himself. “Hmph. That so? If that’s the case, how do you plan on getting us food?”
“Hm.” Sonic tapped his chin in thought, then he grinned. “Well… Amy taught me a few things. Come with me.” He jumped to his feet and wobbled unsteadily. Shadow immediately shot up to help him but Sonic waved him off. He limped away from the river and beckoned Shadow to follow with a smile.
“I’ll show ya,” he called.
—-
They were silent for a few minutes as they did what Shadow could only describe as aimless wandering. He had begun to seriously doubt that Sonic actually knew what he was looking for. The blue hedgehog walked in front of Shadow, his hands clenched by his side and a determined look in his searching eyes. Shadow noticed a couple splotches of mud on Sonic's right ear and his shirt had slightly slipped off one shoulder. Shadow looked away, but the image stuck in his mind. Annoying.
“Aha!” Sonic cried out, making Shadow start and cough violently. He turned to Sonic, already holding up a dismissive hand. They had stopped in a small clearing. The sun casted a ring of light in the middle and it was still close enough to the river that they could hear it.
“What?” he snapped. Sonic frowned at him, unimpressed, but said nothing of his condition. Instead he stepped aside and brandished his hands at a small plant theatrically. Shadow blinked at him.
“What?” he said again. The plant didn’t look like anything special. It was just a few oval shaped leaves growing out of the dirt. Sonic plucked it and shook it in Shadow’s face.
“This,” He smirked. “Is a plantain.”
He turned and began plucking a few more that were scattered around the clearing. “Amy showed me a couple edible plants and I think I remember them… uh, ribbed leaves? Yeah, yeah. She said something about, uh… Vitamins.”
Shadow wandered forward, watching him as he rambled and walked around, picking random plants out of the ground. More plantains, a couple weed-looking things and—
“Oh! Dandelions!” He discarded the plants in his arms and grabbed a large chunk of the yellow weeds. He ran back to Shadow at high speed, nothing but a blur of blue. Shadow wanted to curse at him for being such a reckless idiot, because—no matter how much he wanted to ignore it—Sonic was still injured. He tripped mid-step and crashed into Shadow, knocking them both over.
They landed heavily in the centre of the clearing and Shadow coughed painfully.
He blinked his eyes open slowly as he looked up into the sunlight. For a moment he was taken aback by the sight of the clear blue sky. It felt warm and soft, and the smell of the grass was sweet. From on top of him, Sonic winced and clenched his eyes shut. The dandelions had scattered around them and there were a few seeds floating through the air. Through his pain, Sonic managed a small laugh. His quills seemed to glow in the sun.
“Aw man, my bad,” he said, trying to push himself up. Shadow realised their position and quickly sat up. Sonic fell off him weakly. Shadow sat with himself for a moment as his heart hammered in his chest. He held a hand over it worriedly. Was this part of his sickness? Shadow glanced at the hedgehog beside him and suddenly he had other things to worry about.
Sonic had gone pale. Shadow noticed a trail of blood smeared on the grass. He rolled Sonic onto his back and looked at his injury. The small wounds had split open again and the skin around them was swollen. He could see the redness of it through Sonic’s blue fur.
“Damn,” Shadow cursed. He coughed. “Damnit Sonic!”
He tore off his leather jacket and tugged off his singlet. He pressed it against Sonic’s leg and the blue hedgehog inhaled sharply. He sat up, his face contorted in pain.
“It’s fine! I’m okay, really,” he insisted. Shadow just ignored him and tied his shirt around the injury as tightly as he could. With every tug of fabric, Sonic flinched and winced.
Even once it was tied, there were immediately small pinpricks of red soaking through. Shadow tried to steady his breathing.
“Your leg, does it burn?” He asked. Sonic looked away, trying for a smile.
“Seriously, I’m—”
“Sonic,” Shadow interrupted.
The other hedgehog met Shadow’s eyes. Shadow hoped that he would finally grasp the seriousness of his own situation, but instead he did something unexpected. His face fell into a soft smile. Not like his usual arrogant grins, or even teasing smirks. This was… different. He slowly reached a hand out to Shadow’s face. For a strange moment, Shadow thought he was going to touch his cheek, but he didn’t. He plucked something from in Shadow’s quills and twirled the dandelion between them, smiling at it.
“Yellow suits you, ya know?”
There was a long silence while Shadow tried to figure out if Sonic was teasing him. Then he told himself off. Of course he was, Sonic did nothing but tease. Shadow decided that maybe a good throttle would really get the message across. Before he could, however, there was a scratching sound from Sonic’s wrist.
A warbled voice filled the silence between them. “---onic? You guys—ere?”
The two hedgehogs looked at each other in surprise. Sonic’s face broke into a wide grin as he answered eagerly.
“Tails!”
Maybe they were going to be okay.
—-
Rouge tapped her heel against the ground impatiently.
It had been two days since Sonic and Shadow had gone missing. The others were frantic to find them. Tails and Amy had been out in the tornado all day yesterday searching for them to no avail. Knuckles had gone back to the master emerald, but not without assuring the others that those two could handle themselves. Normally Rouge would agree, but this time she couldn’t help but be on edge.
While Tails sat in front of his computer, repeating the same phrase over and over into his communicator, Rouge watched from the corner of the room. There had never been a reply, but that had never stopped the young fox from trying. Or Amy from hoping. She stood diligently at Tails’ side, leaning forward, listening.
Rouge had no doubt that Shadow and Sonic could survive whatever was out in the forest—they were tough, sure, but Rouge was here because of one tiny thing…
“Hey, Pinkie,” Rouge called. Amy looked around irritably and put her hands on her hips.
“What?”
“You ever heard of a blue rose?”
Amy faltered. “A blue rose? Sure.”
“Do any of ‘em grow around here?”
Though she seemed confused about this line of questioning, she answered. “Blue roses don’t grow naturally, they’re just dyed white roses. Why?”
Rouge thought about this. She hadn’t really thought much about that morning before the battle, with Shadow and the blue petal. That is, until the battle itself. She had caught the small moment when it happened again. She went back there after the fight was over to see for herself and sure enough, there in the grass, was a small, bright blue rose. She had never seen any flower like it.
It reminded her of something she had seen ages ago, on one of her treasure hunts. While she was travelling she found herself with competition. She and the woman had travelled together for a time, before they realised their rivalry, but in that time the woman’s sickness had become apparent. They had to stop a lot so she could throw up. One time, when Rouge went to help, she saw the pink tulip petals.
If that wasn’t weird enough, once Rouge made it to her destination—an old temple—she was reunited with the woman. Only she was dead. From her decaying chest, several bright pink tulips bloomed.
Although it was strange, it was hardly the strangest thing she had seen, so she’d eventually forgotten about it.
If it was the same thing, she wasn’t sure even Shadow could beat it.
Her thoughts were interrupted as Tails shouted excitedly. He and Amy looked at each other with relief as Sonic spoke.
“Tails!----glad to hear—-is everyone?” His voice was broken and overwhelmed by white noise, but it was the most they had gotten in the past two days. Rouge got up from her spot and joined them.
“Sonic! We’re okay!” Amy said. “We’ve been looking for you.”
“Do you know where you are?” Tails asked quickly.
There was a long silence. Rouge could see the tension in Amy and Tails’ shoulders.
“---know—somewhere in the forest—thing after us—”
Rouge grabbed Tails’ wrist and brought the communicator closer to her. “Are you two okay?” She asked pointedly. She made the question sound casual. The other two would only worry their tails off if they knew what she knew.
“---kay —-” This was Shadow’s voice. “Sonic is—-his leg is—-bleeding, he can’t run—-”
“And Shad—sick!” Said Sonic.
The line went silent. Rouge felt her blood go cold. “Sick? What do you mean?”
“And what do you mean Sonic is bleeding?” Amy cried out.
There was no reply this time. Rouge waited five minutes before crossing her arms and turning away.
“Guys? Guys come in? Sonic?” Tails called. Amy clenched her fists.
“We have to go back out and look for them. Sonic is injured! And what did he mean? Shadow is sick?”
They both turned to Rouge. She stared back for a moment, unsure what to do. Shadow would probably want no one to know, as stubborn as he was. But there was no way being out in the wilderness was going to raise his chances of survival, especially when they had no idea what exactly he was sick with and Rouge wasn’t exactly sure where to start the research on her own.
Rouge uncrossed her arms and looked at Tails. “Say, any way that computer of yours can run a diagnosis?”
-—
In the clearing, Sonic and Shadow listened to the static of Sonic’s communicator. Shadow held the blue hedgehog's wrist in his hand as he listened intently. But the other side has gone silent again. Shadow grimaced and stood up, brushing himself off and slipping his jacket back on. Sonic stayed where he was on the ground, his shoulders drooping and his grin all but gone.
“Something must be interfering with the signal,” Sonic said, dully. This made sense, as they hadn’t moved from their spot since making contact. He didn’t like thinking about what that could mean. He looked back at Sonic, who stared at the ground, his brows creased. Shadow cleared his throat and offered his hand.
“Hmph, we should keep going. We should try to get to higher ground. It could be the trees getting in the way.”
Sonic smirked and took his hand, letting Shadow pull him up.
“Okay, but first,” Sonic rubbed his hand together and picked up the fallen dandelions. “I’m starving.”
He popped one in his mouth and chewed for a moment, humming contently. Then he went silent and his face dropped.
“BLEUGH!” He spat. He made a face like he just bit into a lemon. Shadow just crossed his arms and shook his head as Sonic spat and wiped his mouth cursing nature, Amy, and pretty much everything around him.
Shadow didn’t even realise he was smiling. “Come on, hedgehog. Let’s go.”