Work Text:
Shhhhhhhhfff.
Station Square. Summer.
In the dark quiet of the night, a fan whirred its airy whispers into an apartment bedroom, mingling with the wind outside the window in its efforts to drive the mugginess away. The night was cloudy, the moon new; no shine from the moon, no light from twinkling stars, only LEDs announcing in a loud red that it was 3:14 in the morning. It had been, for most the night, the perfect cradle of sleepiness and rest: quiet but not soundless, calm but not still.
Then, at 3:15 came the deep rumbling thunder and the electric snap of lightning across the windows, and in the same instant, a shrill scream and the thrashing of blankets.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Sonic bolted upright in bed, trying to grab his partner’s arms to steady him without terrorizing him further. “Hey, Shadow, it’s alright! It’s alright!”
The trashing came to a slow stop, and Shadow lay staring up at Sonic, wide-eyed and breathing hard. He didn’t realize how deeply his fingers dug into Sonic’s hands until those hands relaxed and allowed Shadow to pull away. He groaned, covering his face. He rubbed his eyes hard, as if trying to work out the remnants of the nightmare, until finally laying one arm across his chest and the other above his head, staring at the ceiling. He stayed that way for a long moment, and Sonic stayed as he was; watching, cautious.
Finally, Shadow pushed himself up, swinging one leg off the side of the bed. “I’m just going to sleep on the couch so I don’t wake you ag—”
“Shadow.” Sonic reached out, taking gentle hold of Shadow’s arm before he could leave. Shadow looked down at Sonic’s hand—then up at Sonic, who looked at him with a difficult-to-place gentleness. Shadow opened his mouth to speak, but then, another thunderclap, and he nearly jumped up off the bed. Sonic’s grasp tightened, though not painfully. His voice was unusually soft. “Trust me, I’ve been through a bunch of storms with Tails. I’m used to—”
“It’s not… that.” Shadow rested his face in his hands, but only for a moment; the images that flashed across his closed eyes were still too much, so he looked ahead at the wall instead. “I’m not afraid of storms.”
“It’s fine, Shad, we all get scared sometimes. I’m not real fond of—”
“It’s not the storm,” Shadow all but snapped back. His hands were balled into fists at his sides, and though he hated to close his eyes, it was all he could do as the intense wave of emotion crashed over him: anger, sickness, guilt… sadness. It was sadness that lingered at his feet as the wave pulled back, and ran coldness through his body. It was sadness that fell away as tears from his eyes, and made it impossible to open them back up and remove himself from the replaying nightmare.
And it was sadness that tore through Sonic like a cyclone as he pulled Shadow back into his arms and into a tight embrace. It was sadness that burned at his insides like nothing else could; sadness that someone who had gone through so much, that he loved so much, had to hurt so bad. Maybe, deep inside, he knew it hadn’t been the storm. Maybe he just wanted to offer Shadow a way out. Whatever it was caused him to hold onto Shadow even tighter as thunder cracked outside and caused him to turn Shadow to face him, so that he could hold him even tighter.
“The gunshots,” Shadow barely managed through his sobs. “They echoed so loudly. Like thunder. We didn’t know where they were coming from. We couldn’t tell. Oh, my god. Oh, my god. I didn’t even know until—until they were right there—oh my god—”
“I’m here,” was all Sonic could whisper. Over and over: I’m here. I’m here. I’m here I’m here I’m here I’m here. He held Shadow so tightly that his fingers pushed deeply into Shadow’s back. He kept Shadow’s head close to his neck, then pulled back to kiss tears away, then held close again. He wrapped himself around Shadow like a shock blanket. I’m here.
And Shadow held back. He held on for dear life.
“I won’t let you go this time,” Sonic whispered. “I won’t.”
“I know,” Shadow whispered back.
And he did. He knew it, and he trusted Sonic. As the images began to fade from all but the corners of his waking mind, and the sobs subsided into quiet breaths, Shadow let himself melt into Sonic, vulnerable and open. He let himself be as Sonic’s hand ran soft trails through his quills. He stared into the darkness until he could let Sonic’s touch lull him back to serenity as the rain began to pour and the thunder faded.
“I’m here,” Sonic whispered one last time, and Shadow nodded slowly.
It was all he wanted.