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Nine’s betrayal had been incredibly predictable. Painfully so; Shadow would’ve laughed, had the situation been any different. Even before the kid had asked cryptically for more time, even before that unplaceable look he’d regarded Tails’ phantom image with, Shadow had felt the familiar twist of mistrust at the very first sight of him. And as much as Sonic ribs him over it – he recalls that’s why you don’t have any friends! with a scowl as well-worn as that same scepticism – he’s never known his intuition to fail him. At least, not in a long time.
As much as Sonic also finds it extremely hilarious to make jabs about, Shadow does actually have people he trusts and of course he has friends, thank you very much. It just so happens that those two categories so rarely overlap, for him, and the single being within that scarcely-met category is currently trapped as a ghost within the ruins of their home. It also happens that the only other to come close – that is, by being by far the most capable, driven person he’s ever known, someone he could hesitantly place as an ally at the very best of times, a rival at the majority but nonetheless someone he often irrationally thinks he could trust with his life – is the keyed-up nuisance currently acting as the last bastion of hope for their world.
Sonic fits into absolutely zero of the neat categories in Shadow’s mind. He’s unpredictable, drawn purely by the whims of his own imagination and emotions, perpetually chasing the high of freedom. By all means he should be a liability – has shown time and time again each excruciating way in which he is – and Shadow should not trust him in any regard to pull this off, really. But – haltingly as the admission may come – he can quietly allow himself to admit if only in the confines of his own mind that if anyone can fight this multi-universal threat, it’s the unthinking headstrong idiot that had caused the entire thing to begin with.
Still, he shouldn’t have forgotten. Sonic’s hopeless blind faith in everyone around him to simply do the right thing, the same that had brought Shadow to his senses a lifetime ago – the kind of miracle he knows can’t happen twice.
So as he watches Nine turn his back and leave, he isn’t surprised. He isn’t, because this was inevitable, and he’d seen it coming from a mile away, but somehow he feels himself stutter with something so close to betrayal–
Which makes no sense. No trust there to begin with, he reasons, and that’s when his gaze settles on Sonic, still stood stock-still in the middle of the empty cavern, back turned to him.
He should move, probably. Sonic hasn’t acknowledged him standing there at the cave’s entrance; likely hasn’t realised yet, in the shock of the moment. After a second or two Shadow slides down to meet him, makes a point to loudly scuff his shoes against jagged rocks and dismembered metal limbs as he does.
The noise alerts Sonic to his presence, though he doesn’t turn around to look at him. “Don’t say it.”
“I’m thinking it.” Shadow shoots back immediately, deadpan where he’d been aiming somewhere closer to venomous: I told you so. He’d been planning with great satisfaction on saying it (and a few other choice words) actually, right up until he’d registered the waver to Sonic’s voice, the shaking clench of his fists. That same moment he realises how truly out of his depth this situation suddenly is.
It’s a little funny, in a horrible sort of way, that something as simple as comfort is where Shadow falls short. GUN’s finest; Eggman’s latest schemes; the doctor’s insufferable lookalikes banded together and all their army? Nothing. It’s what he was made for, after all; a fight that flows easy through his veins, as easy to him as breathing.
The sight of Sonic – uncharacteristically small as he curls into himself on the ground – feels more akin to trying to wheeze out a struggling breath at the bottom of a swimming pool. Shadow looks anywhere but at him, floundering in unfamiliar waters.
“We were so close, I don’t know why he… I should’ve–” Sonic starts to mutter before shaking his head. “I’m an idiot.”
What Shadow would say, in any other situation, is yeah, you are, alongside a few less polite reiterations of that fact. What Shadow would absolutely not do in any situation at all, is take a few hesitant steps forward before sitting right beside the distressed hedgehog. And yet.
This situation is a little off-script from the usual, he supposes.
Their arms bump together in their sudden close proximity and Sonic’s wide eyes twitch toward the point of contact. Shadow can’t help but bristle a little under his bewildered gaze.
“That doesn’t matter now.” he starts, for want of something to say. “We have to move on. Focus on the current situation.”
“The current situation is my fault.” Sonic bites back, and the bitter tone seeping through gives Shadow momentary pause. He’s spent so long being the so-called cynic of the two that now, with their dynamic so suddenly shifted, he’s not entirely sure what to say. Sonic may suddenly fancy himself a barely-convincing pessimist, but Shadow’s propensity for pep-talks and emotional support remains firmly unchanged. So he remains in unnerved silence as Sonic continues, with a barked out laugh; “God, this entire thing – you must be pissed, huh.”
And he is, actually. So infuriated that he shakes with it, the urge to slam his trembling fist into unforgiving rock, leave some kind of tangible consequence on this spiritless unchanging landscape, anger convulsing viciously beneath his skin because it isn’t fair, because they had been close, and Shadow had watched that chance be ripped away on the back of an eight-year-old that he could’ve, should’ve dealt with when he still had the chance.
It’s not fair, it’s not, to watch the world he’d slowly started to love stripped to its barest bones, a snapshot of a moment stretched endlessly throughout time; words hung in the air, the atmosphere swimming with unfinished conversation. It’s not fair, the way he’d simply stood and listened and watched for an eternity the first time he’d stumbled across the Shatterspace, memorising the lilt of Rouge’s voice and wondering if this fragment would be all that was left of her. Wondering why he, of all people, had miraculously survived. Just why he’d been allowed to keep going, why he’d been afforded that chance yet again.
So Shadow says nothing. He exhales heavily and looks away, and it relieves absolutely none of the tension steadily building at his temples.
“You can hit me, you know.” comes the voice behind him, apropos of nothing. Shadow whirls around to face him, that tension narrowing to the familiar fine point of incredulity. “If it’d make you feel better, I mean. I get it.”
“What?” Shadow blurts out, baffled. “Why would I even–”
Sonic looks at him like it’s obvious. It really isn’t. “Why not? I mean, I did this, so you can just–”
Shadow cuts him off before he can hear any more. “You're being ridiculous. I'm not entertaining your inane thoughts right now, there's bigger problems.”
“Like two days ago you couldn’t get enough of telling me those problems were my fault!” Sonic’s outspread arm knocks into Shadow’s forehead as he starts gesturing frantically. “You should be rubbing it in my face right now, or, I don’t know, feel anything about this, considering I just lost our final chance at–”
Shadow grabs the other’s arm without thinking, stilling his movements in an instant. “Sonic. Enough.”
He glares, Sonic’s elbow gripped in his hand. “If I wanted to do anything I would’ve done it already, alright? Stop trying to goad me into a fight. We both know you won’t win.”
Sonic's expression falls. He gives a numb, dumbfounded nod, and though the confusion doesn’t quiet outweigh the upset in his expression, his arm relaxes in the space between them, still held loosely in Shadow’s grasp. “You’re not even a little angry?” he mutters.
“Of course I’m angry–” the next part hurts his ego a little (a lot) to say out loud. Shadow reminds himself what’s at stake. “–Just… not at you.”
Sonic blinks. “Huh?”
Shadow inhales. Exhales. And again. There’s bigger problems. His pride may never recover, but if this is what it takes to bring Sonic back to his senses and back to what’s important then damn it all.
“This,” his free hand makes an arc around the cavern, the twisted metal amongst the rubble; the dull darkness where the Prism shards had once been; “this isn’t – entirely – your fault. It would be easier if it was.”
“You couldn’t have known just how much power the Chaos Council had built up. You couldn’t have stopped them from attacking the other Shatterspaces, or getting here some way or other. It wouldn’t have happened eventually. And with Nine–” he feels Sonic’s arm tense. “–well, that was his mistake to make. You couldn’t have known he was going to do… that.”
“I should’ve.” Sonic says back instantly. “I should’ve looked out for him better. The way I kept comparing him to Tails – it must’ve been killing him. No wonder he left.”
“You could’ve chosen some better words, sure.” Sonic manages a snort at the blunt tone; no use sugarcoating it. To Shadow, it’s the plain and simple truth, the same as everything else – but.
Here is where he pauses. Even he’s not entirely sure why his anger at Sonic’s blind trust in Tails’ doppelganger has so suddenly dissipated, even in the aftermath of a betrayal that should leave him reeling. He closes his eyes for a moment, sees blonde hair and a well-worn memory that refuses to ever truly fade. A promise that had – that continues to keep him fighting, and there.
Finding something to cling to when all else is lost. Too scared to let go, because that means admitting it’s gone.
Shadow thinks, sometimes, that they might not be so different after all.
Never has the thought been more terrifying.
“I… can’t blame you for it.” he settles on eventually, softer than it has any right to be. His gaze is once again on anything but Sonic, face burning with the abrupt vulnerability of the moment. At some point, he’d lowered his hand from Sonic’s arm – the sudden brush of their fingers jolts him back to reality.
Sonic sniffs. There’s tears brimming in his eyes, but he’s smiling, watery as it may be. “When’d you get so inspirational, huh? Amy finally convince you to read those self-help books?”
“Not a chance,” Shadow scoffs, feeling his mouth quirk into a smile despite himself. “I’m just being realistic.”
Their hands haven’t moved, he realises. Shadow slowly, hesitantly, laces their fingers together, and doesn’t risk looking.
Sonic says nothing. For a minute or so, they’re both silent, listening to the wind whistle through Ghost Hill. Sonic scrubs at his face with his free hand for a good few seconds before turning to face Shadow proper, grinning crookedly.
“So, what now?”
“We rest.” Sonic opens his mouth to argue; Shadow fixes him with a look. “Nine sure doesn’t have a plan and the Chaos Council’s forces were just decimated. They retreated, they’ll be taking time to recuperate. So should we.”
Obviously, Sonic doesn’t seem particularly thrilled with the situation, but he acquiesces regardless with a heavy lean into Shadow’s side. “...Fine. Haven’t really slept since this whole thing started anyway.”
Shadow feels his eye twitch. Well, if he’d known that sooner.
He moves to stand up, muttering about finding someplace to set up camp, when he feels a tug at his hand. Sonic looks apprehensive, suddenly. Shadow tilts his head toward him.
“We can just stay here a while. I’m beat anyway.” he sounds oddly skittish for such a small request; Shadow has half a mind to poke fun of his apparent preference for cold cave floor over the comparatively softer grass outside. They could even find a tree to shelter under, though he really doubts it’ll rain (or change in any significant manner) in Ghost Hill. Then he remembers the scarred landscape, just how gutted Sonic had been to witness the Chaos Council reduce half of the place to ash.
Yeah, that’ll do it.
He sits back down next to him, silent, and Sonic spends a good minute or so shuffling awkwardly about until he finds a comfortable position; lying on his back against the cold floor, staring straight up at the ceiling, Shadow sat stiff next to him.
It’s odd, having him this quiet. When they’re fighting Shadow can never get him to shut up, and in the increasingly frequent occasions they’ve fought alongside each other, there’d been more pressing matters than casual conversation. But now it’s just the derelict remains of Ghost Hill; the whisper of a breeze, maybe the faint echoes of their friend’s voices if he really strains to hear it. He doesn’t make that mistake again.
Instead he eyes where their fingers are still tangled; Sonic’s hand atop his own, the both of them resting on Sonic’s chest. The steady rise and fall with each breath and the gentle thrum of his heartbeat against Shadow’s palm are the only constants in the quiet. They must make a bizarre picture, Shadow thinks; Sonic sprawled across the floor staring blearily ahead, Shadow sat tense next to him, knees drawn up to his chest. Neither quite looking at the other, pressed together from elbow to fingertip.
It’s weird. It’s unlike him. And it’s strangely peaceful.
So of course Sonic takes it upon himself to break the moment.
“Hey, did you see what I did back there? Y’know, with that uh, egg thing.” Shadow feels his arm jostle with each exaggerated gesture he makes to accompany those ridiculous explosion sound effects. “Totally scrambled him, ha.”
“I’m sure you looked very cool.” he responds flatly.
Sonic peers at him from his spot on the floor, smiling. “Yeah yeah, you don’t mean that.”
“You’re right, I don’t.” Shadow grins back.
In that moment, Sonic’s guffaw feels irrationally satisfying. Shadow doesn’t bother trying to smother the warmth that suddenly springs up in his chest. “Just telling the truth. At least one of us has to have some sense around here.”
“You mean the sense to stay out of my fight?” Sonic elbows him lightly. “Yeah, good call. Wouldn’t wanna have me embarrass you in front of all your fans.”
Shadow snorts; it’s good to be back on familiar ground. “Please, that’s all appearances. I wouldn’t waste the effort.”
“–And that right there is why I’m popular and you’re not.” he chides, the exact same way he had earlier. Shadow rolls his eyes.
“Whole lot of good all those fans do you. I didn’t see any of them jumping in to save the day, just now.” he rests his chin in his free hand. “Or maybe something scared them off?”
Despondency had settled over Ghost Hill like ash, like acrid smoke stuck to clothes, and sat in the middle of it all, Shadow suddenly feels like a monumental fool. In the face of the past few days, the retort flounders and falls flat on its face.
They both wince. Shadow is well acquainted with saying the wrong things at the wrong time – which makes it no easier each time he does. He hadn’t thought before speaking, like usual. Hadn’t thought of just how that would sound, after everything – and it’d been the first thing Sonic had thought of, naturally. How could he not, given the ghosts that surround them.
God forbid they stay on the same wavelength for too long.
“Um.” he flails. Again, this is a situation he’s hardly a stranger to; Shadow’s often been told he comes off cruel without meaning to, he knows, never the best about thinking before he speaks. Knowing this doesn’t make him any better off, though. Clearly.
And apologies have never really been his thing, either. He makes a lame attempt, smoothing his thumb across the back of Sonic’s palm in some awkward approximation of comfort, and stares awkwardly off to the side. “I. Didn’t mean… I just–”
“Could’ve chosen some better words?” Sonic echoes with surprising gaiety. Shadow startles and looks dead at him, confused. “Hey, that makes two of us.”
Sonic’s smiling, but it’s shaky, and the atmosphere feels shifted again regardless, back to something bordering on bittersweet. Shadow stares down at his free hand glumly, feels Sonic’s pulse where they’re connected. His own heart beats rabbit-like, a hopeless rhythm in his chest.
“It’s fine, really.” Shadow hears from beside him, Sonic’s tone deceptively light. “I uh, do kinda deserve it, you know.”
Shadow’s head whips back up to – for what must be the umpteenth time today – stare incredulously at him. “Did we not just talk about this.”
Emotion is a beast he’s never understood – doesn’t think he ever will, really – and he feels it more than ever right now. Sonic’s apparent intent to return to this subject is downright illogical, to him. Just why he’s intent to linger on such obvious feelings, just why he feels the need to try and hide his irrational self-deprecation behind a flimsy shade of nonchalance when they both know full well how he’s really feeling.
Self-preservation, maybe. Deflection, definitely. Shadow continues staring as if any of this could be communicated with a simple look.
Sonic gives first in their impromptu standoff, glancing away with a snort. “We did,” he acknowledges, “and I still don’t get how you aren’t mad–” Shadow opens his mouth to retort– “at me.”
“It wouldn’t be productive.” Shadow responds automatically. He’s no stranger to having to explain himself, after all. “We’re supposed to be working together right now. I’m not childish enough to risk the world over some hurt feelings.” unlike some other people we know, he thinks, maybe a bit too meanly.
Sonic says nothing back, and Shadow can tell he doesn’t believe him, not fully. He sighs. “You really think I’d lie about this.”
“I don’t.” Sonic mutters, somewhere between confused and resigned. “It just doesn’t make sense. You’re telling me the guy who could kill me for looking at him wrong is forgiving me for almost ending the world?”
“Don’t think for a second that I forgive you.” he fires back immediately. And the world could very well still end if they’re not careful. “I just think you’re not that observant, really.”
“What are you even talking about, man.”
Shadow turns fully to face a confused Sonic, and with the movement their hands finally disentangle, a little regretfully. He raises an eyebrow. “Sonic. Has it not occurred to you at all that I’ve just changed? ”
The thought occurs to him only when he says it aloud, but no one needs to know that.
Funny, really, that for all his faith in second chances and the ability to start over, Sonic hadn’t seen it before. Even funnier that Shadow himself hadn’t seen it, either, because now he does a lot more makes sense.
Maybe this hasn’t bothered him as much as it should because somewhere along the line those neat little categories in Shadow’s mind had blurred until they didn’t mean so much, certainly not as much as they had a lifetime ago, and he’d long stopped holding himself to that cold unreasonable standard anyway. So maybe whatever they are is less camaraderie only when the situation is dire enough to call for it and more simple company, more seeking each other out for a race purely for the fun of it. It doesn’t take the world to bring them together, now, and Shadow’s so-called cynicism is the subject of friendly ribs rather than brutal fights.
And maybe it simply doesn’t matter as much anymore, whether Sonic even is his friend or a convenient ally or whatever else – only that, loathe as he is to admit it, as much as his entire being wants to flinch away from the admission, he hasn’t hated him in a long time. And hate has long given way to something else, something that maybe he’d known all along.
It’d been staring him right in the face, really, waiting to catch the light just enough, ready for that moment where Shadow finally looks back and sees.
The realisation dawns upon him slow, sudden and unsurprising at once, and nothing really changes at all. He’s not the same person he’d been, hasn’t been for a while, and that’s all right. With that epiphany brings a new weight to the air, a dull pressure exacerbated by the space between them. Sonic sits back up, dumbfounded expression trained on him, as if he could manage at all to piece together at all what he’s thinking right now.
Then, slowly, that expression melts into a grin. “You really have, huh.”
This, apparently, satisfies whatever explanation Sonic had been seeking, or is at least enough to snap him out from his little guilt trip, because after a few more quiet moments, Sonic proceeds to fling himself back to the ground like it's nothing, makes a big show of folding an arm behind his head and yawns in his typical obnoxious, unnecessarily loud way. “Welp, I think that calls it for tonight. I need a long nap.” he cracks an eye open. “Wanna stay here a while?”
Shadow narrows his eyes at him. “Funny. It’s almost like I suggested that exact thing ten minutes ago.”
Sonic only smiles back at him in response, softer. Maybe a little nervous. “Nah, I mean–” it’s then Shadow becomes aware of the pull at his hand, and then the way Sonic hesitantly twines their fingers together again. “Like this.”
Shadow’s face goes inexplicably hot, and at risk of embarrassing himself he says nothing, save for a vague sort-of-hopefully noncommittal noise in response; he takes his sweet time finding a comfortable position lying on the floor, too, mainly to avoid meeting his gaze. He does, however, risk tightening his hand around Sonic’s experimentally; it gets him an answering squeeze in return.
“Uh, by the way.” Sonic starts, sentences caught between another yawn. “Thanks for not… well, thanks. For everything. I know all this emotional stuff isn’t your thing.”
“Yeah, not becoming my thing anytime soon. Don’t get used to it.” Shadow replies. Then, faintly: “You’re welcome.”
In the low light of the cavern and both of them facing the ceiling, Shadow hopes to hell that Sonic doesn’t notice the way his hands have begun to shake, clutches him even harder in an attempt to hide it. If he does, he says nothing.
Shadow had almost forgotten that earlier comment about the lack of sleep, but seeing how little time ticks by before Sonic’s breath starts to even out, it rings true. He’s left, once again, to the quiet and steady rhythm of Sonic’s pulse; there’s alarm bells going off in his head screaming at him, telling him to get up and stay as lookout just in case, but he can’t quite bring himself to move.
And how little sleep has he gotten, actually, realising suddenly how sluggish he actually feels. Sleep isn’t a necessity to him, per se, certainly not as important as it is to the average Mobian, but a lack of it doesn’t do him much good either. With the foreseeable future as unpredictable as it is, he’d be foolish to try and fight at anything but 100%. So Shadow takes a deep, calming breath, and tries to settle against the cold floor. He’s certainly slept in worse places.
Though he’s never been particularly quick to fall asleep, either. It’s all he can do, really, to stare at the ceiling and think, maybe for the first time in the eternity that’s passed between now and that fateful day in Green Hill – really think.
Nine’s betrayal had been obvious, he knows this much. He’d seen it coming from the start – had warned Sonic, even, knowing that it’d go completely unheard. He’d been five steps ahead of the inevitable, up to that irrational clench of the heart that now has him stumbling.
For all that he’s changed in the past few years, hope is still a far-off stranger to him. Sonic will call him a pessimist, but he’s simply being realistic. He is under no illusions as to the reality of the situation, had come to terms (or so he tells himself) with all this long before Sonic had crashed back in with that unthinking oblivious full-force sprint. To Shadow, something like trust is rare, a well-kept secret that he seldom lets slip to anyone, and it’s never led him wrong. His emotions are kept well in check, and he hasn’t felt the sting of betrayal in a long time – until today.
Shadow stares bleary-eyed at the ceiling. He closes his eyes and tries to fathom it all: every path leads back to hope.
It’s just that being around someone like him for so long, it’s hard not to get caught up in it all. Sonic makes it seem so easy, to believe the way he does; every fighting chance he’ll throw himself to, that steadfast faith that can drag anyone back to their senses kicking and screaming.
By all means this should terrify him, and truth be told it does. Just not in the way he’d thought it would – not in the way it should. Hope is vulnerability, hope is that desperately uncontrollable unknown, hope is irrational. Hope is Sonic, over and over again, stabbed in the back in all manner of ways across innumerable worlds and lifetimes, and clambering to the next with an outstretched hand and bright smile, even to the least deserving.
The moment Nine had turned his back and left, that briefest moment where Shadow had seen everything for what it meant. He almost understands, now; why.
And really, he doesn’t have time to ruminate on these thoughts, doesn’t have much time to rest at all, despite what he’d told Sonic. There’s worlds at stake, universes whose fates lie at the whims of a council of bumbling idiots and a sulking child; he doesn’t trust either party not to end it all for good out of pure impulse. By all means, Shadow could and should be planning something right now, even on a jumbled tired mind and an unruly heart.
Yet he doesn’t. For a few hours, for a single hopeful snapshot in this godawful situation, the world has to wait. The world can wait.
Shadow seeks out Sonic’s hand in the half-light. It’s still there, unwavering and warm against his own, like it always has been.
Then slowly, he wanes off into sleep. It’s by no stretch of the word particularly peaceful, or dignified on any of their parts – sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder on a cave floor surrounded by scrap metal – but it’s something. It’s a start.
And that’s more than enough.