Chapter Text
There always seemed to be someone at Sonic’s house. It didn’t matter the hour or the day, there just always happened to be someone hanging around. On this particular day, it was Knuckles who brought along Rouge, and Tails was always there so of course he was around. But from the moment Sonic dared to step foot in his own living room at 1pm when he finally woke up, Rouge insisted that she call over Shadow.
As soon as Sonic sat down Rouge threw her head back in an over-dramatic display of helplessness. “Oh my god! I forgot my mascara!” She glanced slightly looked to her side to see if he was paying attention. He was. “I guess I’ll have to call Shadow over to bring it to me.”
The way Sonic's ears visibly peaked and his whole body seemed to tense by the mere mention of the bat's best friend's name was infinitely amusing to her. They never discussed it, as they really didn’t need to, but she understood that the hero had fallen helplessly in love with her dark and brooding friend. And after getting that knowledge, she intended to exploit it. Of course, it wasn't confirmed, but the way he leaned to the mere mention of the hybrid’s name and how Sonic squirmed when he paid attention to anyone other than him was more than enough evidence to affirm her suspicions. She decided seeing this supposedly great, gallant, practically worshipped hero be so uncomfortable was priceless.
“You mean Shadow’s coming? Like right now?” Everyone in the room couldn’t help but give him a strange look. Sonic’s voice had betrayed him, it came out rushed and a pitch too high. Hopeful or anxious, no one was completely sure, not even Sonic himself.
Rouge shrugged, “I mean he texted me ‘alright’ with a period so who knows.”
“No but, is he coming like now?” Sonic stressed, quickly losing his resolve.
“I mean, he can move pretty fast. That’s why he’s your rival, right?”
That was surely a surprise, it was the fox who seemed to be teasing Sonic now. The knowing lilt that danced upon the word rival was not lost on Rouge. The kid must know something. She’d have to remember that for later.
Sonic soon started sputtering again, making scrambling excuses for his behavior. Rouge liked to think everyone took as much pleasure as she did in watching him awkwardly dance around Shadow as a conversation topic because she was about three seconds away from canceling her Netflix subscription in favor of just following him around. His senseless rambling eventually tapered off as he managed to scurry off into the bathroom. Rouge craned her head to see what he was up to. He never closed the door so he obviously wasn’t doing anything that warranted a closed door, in her mind he was probably trying to make himself presentable for his little crush.
She separated her eyes from the tips of blue quills she could see from through the threshold. There wasn’t much she could see, but apparently, Tails wasn’t in the same position as he stood at the other side of the room with his neck and body slightly leaned outward to catch a glimpse of what his brother was up to.
“What’s he doing now?” Knuckles grumbled from his position on the floor.
“Obsessively checking himself over and over again.” Tails deadpanned as if this was the anticipated response.
So now she knew, everyone was aware. Shadow and Sonic’s irrefutable attraction to each other was as much of a secret here then it seemed to be at her house. And she thought it was her detective capabilities that clued her into their strange dalliance. She should feel insulted that it wasn’t her perceptiveness, but there was something amusing in the fact that they were so ostentatious yet simultaneously so oblivious even red could figure them out.
Knuckles suddenly started chuckling; “do you think Shadow does all this crap, too? Or is he sane?”
“Coming from someone who has the pleasure of living with him, he does and no he’s not sane.” Rouge laughed, but a sudden shift in the air quickly shut her up. Everyone turned their heads, “Well speak of the devil.” Shadow appeared out of thin air right before them, standing in the middle of the room.
Shadow produced a pink metallic cylinder and casually tossed it to Rouge, her mascara had been returned. He subsequently turned on his heel to leave, only to be stopped by an all too familiar voice. “Hey Shad! I didn’t know you were coming.”
Everyone internally groaned with the singular exception of Shadow. He seemed to eat up the blue one’s ‘suave’ act as he instinctively brought a hand up to soothe out his quills. “I didn’t expect to see you today either.”
Shadow continued playing with his quills, almost as if he was trying to fix his appearance. Sonic, in response, dug his foot into the ground as he fiddled with the peach fur of his arm with his adjacent hand. The hero was the first to break their uncomfortably silent stalemate, “I guess things just work out like that sometimes, right?”
“Yeah.”
Rouge wanted to pass away. She wanted to watch as they threw dirt over her tired and exhausted body. Good god, why were they like this? She was well aware she was much better at the delicate art of flirting than most but this was miserable; miserable to watch and surlily miserable to be a part of.
She simply couldn’t look any longer. She looked around the room for any distraction, Knuckles was still transfixed with his game so he was useless and Tails was somehow still watching them struggle to conversate so that was a bust. Sonic’s house was full of things that failed to interest her. She'd already know but now if there was anything good because if she saw something she’d be half tempted to snatch it by now. So, her attention turned to the window, and out the window she saw glittery little snowflakes slowly falling to the ground.
“Look! It’s snowing!” Rouge exclaimed, inciting a mob of former teenagers, now excited school children, to flock to the window. They all huddled around as if it was their first time seeing snow, watching the flakes fall as if they were betting on a snow day.
The only thing to take them from their trance was the bitter chill that took to the room. The door hung wide open, a rectangle of deep blue taking its place. Coincidentally, only moments ago, the hybrid was standing next to Sonic and now he was nowhere to be found. Sonic ran outside to find his missing love interest, though he soon learned there was no need to run far. Shadow was standing in the middle of the lawn, marveling slack-jawed at the snow.
Everything outside was so delicately powdered in a thin layer of soft white. It would be gone by the morning, but it didn’t seem to bother Shadow in the slightest. Sonic slowly approached him, almost studying as he watched this cold, stolid, rigid soldier blink at the snowflakes that got caught on his eyelashes.
It was in his observations, however, that Sonic noticed the small tremors that occasionally shook the hybrid. In his sudden sprint into the great outdoors, Shadow forgot a jacket in the freezing cold. Without so much as a singular coherent thought behind it, Sonic pulled Shadow into a hug.
The first thing Sonic noticed upon contact with him was that he was so warm, and so very soft, softer Sonic had ever pictured him to be. And he could feel the other’s snow-white chest fur up against his own, it had the same texture of a baby kitten only impossibly fluffier. It was only now that Sonic realized that he too forgot a jacket.
“What’s this all about?” There was no malice, no disgust in his voice. That used to be rare for Shadow but with each day it became less and less irregular to hear genuine curiosity in his voice like there was now.
“You ran out without a jacket! You looked freezing! And actually, I could ask you the same thing. What’s this all about.”
Shadow lifted his head so that he was looking up into the air again from Sonic's embrace. “I’ve never seen snow before. Only in pictures.”
Something about that response made Sonic only want to hold on tighter. He wanted to hold on so tight so he never let go. As Shadow was shorter, his head only naturally rested on Sonic’s shoulder.
The hero's hands started to move in a sort of rubbing motion. This was originally intended only to warm Shadow up, but he quickly found a new purpose. He could feel the slight inclination of muscles residing under his fur, through his fingers he could trace his strength from right beneath his fingers. He moved his hands to be more on his sides rather than his back. Here, he found that he could feel the small indent that defined his hips and his waist. This was oddly fascinating.
Sonic then decided where to rest his palms simply because why else does the slight creature of one's frame, the slight dip that is the waist, exist if not to rest your hands there?
“What are you feeling me up for?”
Sonic pulled away in a panic. “What- I wasn’t-” the stammered only for Shadow to reel him back in.
He buried his face into the fine furs of Sonic’s shoulder, letting it muffle his voice “I never said you had to stop.”
Sonic could feel the warmth of the other’s cheeks against his skin, it couldn’t be an easy thing to admit something like this. The hero took him in closer, you know, to comfort him.
Rouge had to admit, they were good for each other. And seeing their flirting that they excused as banter right before her eyes couldn't’ help but make her smile. They were so dumb, dancing around each other the way they did. They had to be in denial, or maybe just stupid, or maybe both. Whatever the case was she had a feeling it was going to turn out just fine for them.