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He remembers, one bland passing day, that he's promised to take Shadow to Tidal Tempest. Though now this zone lies embedded under caves he's long forgotten the way to protected and silent, he still thinks about it. Why had he promised? He vaguely remembers the soft sound of water flowing and the mystical, soothing glow of the caves themselves, and vaguely remembers thinking that Shadow ought to do with some peace in his life.
But this was back when they were still immature, still newly met despite the ebony hedgehog's lore, and Sonic had said it more in the sense of a passing jest than something Shadow frowned and took upon him for real, asking him in a moment of uncharacteristic feelings and uncharacteristic vulnerability whether if he could take him, just to visit. Sonic had been shocked, just a little, and to this day he thinks it was mainly this shock that had allowed him to say 'Sure, Why Not,' so easily.
Shadow is easier, now. Shadow is now friendlier, more trusting, still reserved somewhat but a good hang, and Sonic thinks if Shadow were to bring up Tidal Tempest again then maybe he'd take him along, ironically, not for jokes and funsies. Where a younger Sonic would've left him to explore the fantastical and complex area on his own to get out of, Sonic would now make it an adventure. A place to relive fond memories. Possibly a place to make new ones. A little out-of-the-ordinary hedgehog picnic.
Maybe it would do good for the both of them...
The memories of being trapped upon the Death Egg are still fresh in his mind. The torture, the despicable pain, the leering, towering figures of people he'd thought of nothing but passing goofs to make his days more interesting now holding too much power over his being and life.... It is all too fresh. The pain is an incomplete dam with no workers to block off the passing floods of water that go up his veins every now and then, make him relive the experience during moonless nights with no one to act as an anchor for whenever he feels his breathing falter.
Sometimes, Shadow picks up his frantic calls at 2 AM in the mornings and obliges to his routine of venting his thoughts out by engaging in a friendly play-fight with his rival that does not exactly adhere to the 'play' in its title when the blue hedgehog gets aggressive in his constant fear and anger. It is in those nights where Sonic realizes that there may be a chance where he may not get over this immeasurable fear or anger at all. Sometimes he calls Amy, who talks to him for hours on end. Sometimes he calls Tails, who invites him over to his workshop to help him out on the latest invention he's working on. Sometimes he calls Knuckles, who just grunts on his end as Sonic talks. Sometimes he calls Rouge, who never fails to come over with a bottle of wine (for herself) and some gossip she knows will distract her friend. But his Anger and Fear never feels real with them as it does with Shadow. And that makes him scared, because his Anger and Fear are very much real, and he would like to fight these feelings rather than cower.
Maybe that's why he's thinking about Tidal Tempest and Shadow The Hedgehog and Anger and Fear. Because Anger and Fear and Shadow The Hedgehog and Tidal Tempest are closer to him as a result of his suffering more than he's thought them to be. Because his Pride was stolen from him on the Death Egg, never to be returned, and Pride had been the only one to become a willing anchor for Sonic to hold his feelings onto, but now he's scattered. His feelings are scattered, but they reunite in One Singularity the more time passes by. He wonders what is a good, cheap alternative to Pride, because sooner or later, he will need to contain them. Weakness will always be the worst enemy, and he must never let it come to that.
And so, he texts Shadow.
Tidal Tempest trip tomorrow?
Shadow meets him in the outskirts of Collision Chaos, near the sign helpfully pointing out Tidal Tempest up ahead. There's a small picnic basket in his hands, which he mentions Rouge had made him take - full of chilli dogs, some sandwiches, and a few sodas. Sonic grins his signature grin at him as if Anger and Fear haven't decided to stroll up beside him, uninvited, like creepy strangers attached to your hip after a simple human acknowledgement, but Shadow does not notice this. After all, Anger and Fear are only the blue hedgehog's burden.
There's a burst of familiarity and nostalgia as Sonic walks on the paths he's travelled on before so many times in his younger days, and he revels in his own awe as they reach the caves with their narrow entrances, looking ready to collapse any second. Upon entry, Sonic stops, mouth flying open just the slightest. Shadow, behind him, blinks several times as he looks around, walking ahead at a slow pace as he familiarizes himself to the zone.
It looks old, years old, the cracks in the blue, intricately carved stones that serve as walking ground clearly visible to anyone. The water is emerald green, the sunlight pouring through cracks of the caves making it a sight truly to behold. Shadow turns to watch Sonic glued to his position, eyes closed, and he blinks with confusion. He opens his mouth, and is met with a "Hush, stay silent and listen." And even though these instructions are weird and sound out of placed, Shadow obliges. What graces his ears is what Sonic had been talking about so fondly before - the trickling sound of water and the soft mythical echoes and the vague sound of splashing - fishes? - and the unearthly cracks of stone on which they stand on. It all brings a sort of calm Shadow does not remember ever experiencing, and when he opens his eyes, he sees something he does not remember ever seeing.
The Hero is crying silently, tears dripping soundlessly on the uneven arrays of blue and gold stones beneath them and into the emerald water if they can get as far. Shadow does not say anything. He simply waits.
Sonic notices something.
Anger and Fear do not follow him inside of Tidal Tempest. He turns in his imagination to two cowering figures on their knees, hands outstretched towards him, ugly, deformed, shades of red and green and misery and greed, and he turns his back to them. This is no such place for them.
They pass by a waterfall, which is where Shadow decides to stop walking. He asks Sonic if they can have their snacks here and go back, because he has some errands to run for Rouge and Rouge's errands are far more important than his wandering. And then he adds that they can come back anytime he wishes, because while Sonic does not mention it he sees the figures of Anger and Chaos dancing in the blacks of his eyes and their threat to burst. Sonic agrees, but there's a shift in the mood they both so clearly are familiar with.
The majestically musical sounds of the trickling water and the cracking stone and the splashing fishes from far away are dulled down when the two of them make a place to sit down on, bestowing on the somewhat dirty ground a picnic cloth provided by their bat friend, and they sit on it and eat uncharacteristically quietly until Shadow says: "I can see what makes you so attached to this place,' which comes easily under the category of Ironic Things He's Said because it is a universally known fact that Sonic is afraid of water, but is now becoming a universal fact also that Sonic adores Tidal Tempest emotionally. Or maybe he adores it as a Childhood Memory, and Shadow's brain is over exaggerating.
Why would it exaggerate, you ask? Because he is aware. He is aware of his repressed pain, of his repressed Anger and Fear and Chaos knows how many more. He remembers the Sonic before the Death Egg fiasco as bright, cheerful, happy-go lucky. Of course he's the same, now. But there's an uncharacteristic reserved nature to him now that he lets out only in the darkest of nights when he thinks Shadow isn't watching him from a tree or a floor above. In a sense, the Death Egg has humbled his Pride. Made him fear enclosed spaces. Maybe taken away everything that had made him who he was. It becomes harder everyday to differentiate between Action and Reality. He wants to know if this place brings him comfort in a way no living, breathing person can.
He wants to know if this place can bring him comfort beyond their play-fights at 2 AM, lying next to each other with arms and fingers tangled with the other and harsh breathing visible in the moonlight. Beyond his vents, beyond letting out Anger and Fear and Misery and Greed and yearning, oh so yearning, for Pride, Comfort, Love.
Can he give him the Love he deserves? Enough to kiss away his memories? Enough to take this reservation that pisses him off constantly and smash it to the ground?
Sonic shrugs in response, a small smile on his face. "Yeah, we can come back anytime," he says, and it sounds utterly genuine in a way that makes Shadow break a little. How is he feeling? Why does he have to constantly sacrifice his own happiness for others?
The chilli dogs remain untouched as they leave the Zone. The ebony hedgehog can tell he misses the waterfalls and the emerald waters and the blue and gold tiles already, but it's getting dark and the Sun threatens to sleep before they can make their way back. So Sonic grabs onto his hand and zooms back to their temporary residence - a small hut in the middle of the forest next to a village they've been thinking about moving in for a while with their friends. And maybe it's because Shadow's had enough, but the grip on Sonic's hand doesn't loosen.
Sonic throws him a questioning look, met with being pinned to a tree, Shadow's hot breath on his neck. Pain flares up in his veins. It takes him a minute to realize that he's bitten him, and the implications in his mind make his face redden substantially as he watches the other pull away and stare straight into his eyes.
"Did that distract you?"
Obviously, it did.
"W-what about Rouge's errands? What the hell are you doing?!"
He's grinning, the bastard.
"I distracted you," he says in a self-satisfied way that makes Sonic laugh. The blue hedgehog smacks him till he falls on the ground, throwing himself on top of him before the other drags himself out of the way, countering with a predictable punch that Sonic grabs on instinct, and they fight until Midnight comes to collect her hours and accompanies them until the Sun threatens to rise again.
It's midnight again when they meet next. Sonic's sitting on the roof of their hut, and Shadow comes down with two chilli dogs in his hands and a can of soda. He hands both of these things to Sonic, who looks at them with both longing and repulsion. Cracking the can, he gulps down the drink instantly, quickly, and coughs. Shadow silently pats his back. The chilli dogs remain untouched.
"I guess we should talk."
Sonic is staring at the vast sky when he says this, his expression Shadow realizes all too well as a wish to pass. His hand itches to hold his, but he leaves him to talk with an agreeing nod and a shift of his gaze to the tiles between his feet on which he's sitting on.
"You know I was imprisoned for 6 months, right?" A nod. A grim, breathy laugh. Half-lidded eyes. The sky. Weak limbs. No place. Walls closing in.
"Tortured," Shadow corrects, because they're the type of people to face the worst. He sees Sonic freeze for a second, eyes shutting close, but he relaxes almost instantly. His eyes do not open.
"Yes. That.
"I don't think they meant to.....do that...other than just imprison me for their own benefit. I had thought it was the same old thing, the same old process, and that sooner or later I'd find a chance to escape. It doesn't matter if my hands are bound. It doesn't matter if I'm in an enclosed space." A deep breath.
Your Pride stands in front of you, your hands bound in an electrical Chaotic energy you are all too well accustomed to. Your legs are free, and the room is an enclosed cube with electrical bars outside that would no doubt hurt upon impact. The only thing you have for yourself is a small bench fashioned out of the thick walls themselves, but you are never strong enough to sit on them. Not after Eggman's helper robots have escorted you back after you've been beaten to a pulp, to the extent where not binding your legs is something they can turn a blind eye to. Your back hurts, you knees crack every time you move, you've been forced to lay on your stomach every night after you throw up in the corner of the room everything they force you to eat. You don't remember what they force you to eat. Your memories have suppressed themselves. You remember that incompetence comes with a new bruise. You remember how to obey. Obeying ensures survival, and it is ingrained in your brain over and over like driving a nail through until it lodges itself so deeply inside that no doctor can pull it out. Obeying keeps you alive.
Your Pride watches this. Your Pride binds itself out of its own choice, and slowly deteriorates until it fades out of existence on the same fateful night the electrical bars disappear and you encounter a new Revolutionary recruit going out of their way to board the Death Egg just to save you. And Relief has never been sweeter.
Then why do you choose to act as if nothing happened? Why do you want to be a constant Heroic symbol for people you know can take care of themselves even without your heroism? Why do you want to be strong for the people who welcome your vulnerability? Are you also not alive like them?
The Death of your Pride does not allow vulnerability.
Shadow's eyes are wide, his mouth tight. He does not know what to say, obviously, and Sonic's expected as much. He gives him a reassuring smile, an indirect "But I'm Okay Now," but Shadow's fright does not leave him.
Anger and Fear are back, again. And they're watching them while hanging on the trees beside them like monkeys, observing their every move. Anger hangs over Shadow's head like a ghost, and Fear softly touches Sonic;s arms like a friend coming back after years.
But then Shadow goes to pull him in a tight hug, and Anger and Fear dissipate. He's crying, too. It's uncharacteristic of him to cry. Like Sonic, he does not make a sound, but the tears are rolling down nonetheless. It is uncharacteristic of him to cry. And with the first tear on his skin Sonic feels a new emotion bloom within his chest. There is no obvious way to reverse anything. Empathy is the only thing to keep him on his feet, now. And Chaos knows how important his feet are.
Anger and Fear don't follow him anymore, but neither does Pride come back.
Tidal Tempest waits with its emerald waters and trickling waterfalls and cracked blue and gold stones for their return.