Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was a knock on his door, and — c'mon, seriously? It was like, at least an hour too early for any of this. Sonic was only still up because he'd gone for an early run. So who else was actually up?

He kicked the door open and propped himself up in the doorway.

Rouge and Omega? Huh, alright, not who he'd been expecting, but then again… Who had he been expecting?

"Hey, Blue," sweetly, Rouge greeted, and oh no — that was the voice she used when she wanted something.

"Yeah, hi, Rouge, Omega. Can I… help you?"

She ignored him in favor of sweet-talking, "Did we wake you?"

"Nah," he shrugged, "Knocked over a glass in my sleep and that woke me up. Had to get up to clean it all up, anyway,"

"Have you considered not leaving glass in range of your sleeping self?" dryly, someone asked.

Sonic jumped, "Chaos, Shadow, didn't see you there-!"

Man, he could have sworn there's only been two of them there… Rouge had been talking to him, so she was hard to miss, and Omega was many things, but subtle was not one of them, so he couldn't have missed him if he tried. But Shadow…? Eh, probably hiding behind Omega, or something. That likely said something about the nature of Team Dark's visit.

"Then you should consider getting your eyes checked," Shadow deadpanned.

Rouge gave him a look, "Don't pick fights, hon. We need his help, remember?"

Shadow didn't respond.

"Right…" Sonic slid further down the door frame, "So… What do you need from me?"

"DESIGNATION: DELIVER SHADOW TO BLUE MEATBAG," Omega answered, as if that didn't just raise more questions than answers.

"Uh… Huh?" intelligently, he managed.

"What the big guy means is that we're here to ask real nice if Shadow could stay with you for a few days, Blue," Rouge clarified.

Sonic turned his attention to Shadow, who was staring at the floor quite dedicatedly. His frown was steadfast, and sheesh… If looks could kill…

"I mean, it's probably a bit messy for his standards, but sure. If he needs a place to crash, it's whatever," he said, aiming for nonchalance despite the utter absurdity of the situation, as he saw it.

"I don't," Shadow growled.

'Then why—"

Rouge pulled him aside, but they weren't exactly whispering, so Sonic could still make out their conversation.

"You said you'd be okay with this," she huffed.

"I'm fine, Rouge. I'd have been fine to go along with you, and if I really must stay behind, then I'll be fine by myself,"

"Shadow, we've been over this! Not so soon after last week, and preferably not until we figure out what's up. And you know I'll be pinching the files for you as soon as I can, sweetheart,"

"It'll probably sort itself out by the time you're back anyway…" Shadow muttered, "Omega, tell her this is stupid,"

With Omega in the mix, any sense of privacy was very thoroughly thrown out of the window. Sonic wasn't sure at all that he was supposed to be hearing this, but what was he supposed to do? Shut the door on them?

"REQUEST CONSIDERED," Omage announced, "AND DENIED. ROUGE IS CORRECT, SHADOW,"

"You're both being stupid. You're worrying too much,"

"Better us than no one, hon," coyly, Rouge shrugged.

Impatience was far from Sonic's best friend.

"Is he staying with me or not?" he butted in, probably unhelpfully, from their perspective, but his plans for the day were hardly standing around in his own doorway for hours.

"Yep," Rouge grinned.

"…Yes," reluctantly, Shadow echoed.

"Sick," he nodded in acknowledgment, "Right now, or…?"

"Why'd you think we're here so early?" sharply, Rouge laughed.

"ROUGE, WE ARE CURRENTLY TWELVE MINUTES LATE,"

"That much already?" she rolled her eyes, "Yes, right now, then, Big Blue! Gotta dash!"

She winked, before giving Shadow a quick pat on the shoulder, and whispering something in his ear that only made his glare deepen.

"WE WILL SEE YOU AGAIN SOON, SHADOW," Omega paused, "I WILL MAKE YOU CELEBRATORY PANCAKES, WHEN WE RETURN,"

Rouge, who had been turning to leave, shot right back around, "Uh, no the fuck you won't! You set my kitchen on fire, last time!"

Omega couldn't emote, but Sonic could have sworn he was grinning, all the same.

"THAT WAS THE BEST PART,"

"Not sure I could do much better," absently, Sonic noted.

And what? He could cook the basics! Just nothing gourmet. He usually left that for Tails or Amy. Or the chili dog truck.

Shadow ignored both his and Rouge's remarks, and gave a nod, followed by sighing, "…Thank you, Omega. I look forward to it,"

Dammit, he looked so vindictive, too.

"I'll leave you both with him next time," Rouge threatened, before putting back on her sweet-talking, winning smile, and adding to Sonic, "Thanks for all this, Blue,"

He nods uncertainly, "Yeah, sure… Any time…"

Maybe keeping him and Shadow in the same space for days straight wasn't the best of ideas, but since when was Sonic about to crash on his couch for the next few days straight? And besides, what better opportunity was he going to get to get closer to Shadow?

There had to be a reason Shadow was being unceremoniously dropped off at his house rather than, well, joining Rouge and Omega on whatever they were doing, as well. One why he couldn't just be left by himself, that was, too.

Sonic risked a quick once-over of his rival, and couldn't find anything immediately wrong. He didn't look injured, or otherwise in physical danger. Maybe he was ill? Or, nah, that was stupid. he could practically hear Shadow's voice in his head 'The Ultimate Lifeform doesn't get sick, Sonic'. Well. Not from natural viruses, anyway…

He'd probably just be best asking, wouldn't he?

Neither of them were really moving, so there wasn't much else for it. "You wanna come in, dude?"

"You're blocking the doorway," dryly, Shadow answered.

"Oh, right," Sonic hauled himself up and made a show of letting his rival in.

Shadow seemed to hover awkwardly, once inside. He was clearly looking over the front room, but he was as difficult to read as ever, and he didn't follow Sonic over to the couch to sit down, or anything.

"You weren't joking, earlier," he finally said, gaze now fixed on Sonic himself, "It is messy in here. You live like this?"

"Hey," he threw his hands up, "In my defense, I crash at Tails's place like, half the time, anyway. And Amy's for at least another quarter,"

"That doesn't change it now," Shadow said.

"What you wanna have a cleaning day or something? I don't know exactly what you're here for, but if it's going to bother you that much…"

"It doesn't matter why I'm here," harshly, his rival answered, "But perhaps I could make myself useful…" he wrinkled his nose, "Teach you something about tidy living spaces, too,"

He wanted to point out that yeah, it really did matter why Shadow was here, considering this was Sonic's house, and Shadow seemed to have been forced here out of concern by his teammates, but sensed that there was no point pressing it. If Shadow wanted to share, he would have shared.

"Sure you can try," he chuckled, "You want breakfast first?"

"I don't eat breakfast,"

"I could probably find you some coffee beans," he offered.

Shadow's guard seemed to drop a little, thankfully, "I had some before leaving. I'm fine, thank you,"

Sonic shrugged, "Suit yourself. I'm starvin',"

He left for the kitchen, bouncing up off of the couch, and Shadow followed him dutifully. He probably just thought it'd be impolite to hang out in another room after being invited in. That seemed like a Shadow thing to think.

In the kitchen, Shadow just hovered uncertainly by the counter. Sonic would offer him a seat, but well… He didn't exactly have one of those lying around in here.

"Hey, dude, don't feel you have to follow me around," he said, feeling a little bad.

"I'll leave, if you'd rather some peace," Shadow nodded.

"Hey, that's not what I meant," he corrected, 'Only said about it 'cause there's like, no room in here, and I thought you might want to hang somewhere more comfortable. I wouldn't mind some company, though,"

"It would only irritate me to stare at your mess for longer," his rival replied — definitely an excuse.

Sonic smirked into the open fridge, then grabbed some fruit.

"Sure you don't want anything?" he affirmed, "Knuckles sent some of this over and I can guarantee it's the best you're ever going to find,"

Shadow sighed, laboriously, "Better you to have it than me, then,"

Well, alright then. He led them back into the other room, and swung back into his seat. Once more, Shadow did not copy that.

"You can, uh, explore at your own leisure or whatever,"

"I've been here before," said Shadow, not moving an inch.

"Oh, uh…" Sonic wracked his brains, "That thing Amy made me host here, right? Huh, completely forgot about that,"

"You did say you aren't here very often,"

"Well, yeah. Not much going on, and it's pretty out of the way. Tails's lab is usually closer, and then I get to check up on him, too,"

"That makes sense,"

No further comment was made on the matter — most certainly not one on Shadow's end. Sonic was about ninety percent sure he roomed with the rest of Team Dark, but he wasn't about to prod at Shadow to ask. Especially considering how, uh… Prickly he probably was about living situations, right now.

They sort of just remained in an odd silence, one where Sonic was trying his best to think of something inoffensive to say, and Shadow was as quiet as ever. A hedgehog of few words, if Sonic had ever seen one.

"I suppose you're probably wondering why I'm here," Shadow let out, sounding hesitant, and quite possibly a little pained, as he did.

"Kinda," Sonic admitted, "Can I ask where exactly Rouge and Omega are off to?"

"G.U.N. mission," curtly, Shadow grunted.

Right, so he'd definitely been benched from field work rather than… Rouge's spa weekend. (Hey, he didn't know what Team Dark did in their free time!)

"And you…?" he tried.

Shadow grimaced and looked away, "Rouge demanded me some time off,"

"You deserve it, man," easily, he grinned. He didn't know much of what Shadow got up to for work, but there was no way it wasn't intensive, and he refused to believe that Shadow could be doing a bad job. Now there was a guy who liked to get things done properly.

"Perhaps," his rival sighed, "But it was unwanted,"

"Anything to do with why Rouge wouldn't let you stay on your own?" he hazarded a guess.

"None of your business," Shadow snapped.

"Hey, I—"

"No, I'm sorry…" Shadow backed off, "It's not your fault for asking. If it's all the same to you, I'd rather… explain at a later time,"

"Cool by me, dude,"

"Thanks," stiffly, his rival returned.

"I mean, I'm definitely curious, but I wouldn't force you to talk. Unless it's something I need to know before letting you stay. Like, y'know, if you're about to collapse or bleed all over my floor, or something," he explained.

"Who do you take me for?" competitively, Shadow laughed.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure that wouldn't happen, but… Just to make things clear,"

Mostly because he'd have certainly noticed by now if Shadow really were about to keel over, but he'd let Shadow have this one, for now.

"If you needed to know something, Rouge would have told you,"

"I mean, she did leave in kind of a rush…" he noted, but Shadow didn't respond.

He figured the best thing would be to let that be. So, after disposing of the feelings from his fruit, he stood next to Shadow to restate his offer from earlier.

"You wanna get started, then?"

"I'll group your belongings together," Shadow said, "You know where they go,"

Sonic grinned, "That's a nice thought,"

"Doesn't Rose get on your ass for this sort of thing?" incredulously, his rival returned.

"Not like she's here outside of special occasions," he snorted, "What she doesn't know can't hurt her,"

"I will personally phone her if we don't sort this," Shadow threatened.

"Heard you loud and clear!"

He dashed over to a stack of what — books? He didn't even remember owning some of these… He began to sort them.

It hit him just before they'd finished what he was supposed to be doing that day.

"Oh, crap, dude, I said I'd meet Amy at the market today,"

Shadow gave him a dry look, "I see. Have you missed your meeting?"

"That depends," Sonic grinned, "What's the time now?"

"How should I know?" his rival huffed.

If his communicator weren't over in the other room, he'd know already, but no such luck. And it wasn't like he was around enough in this place to bother installing clocks. They'd just sit around and probably be wrong for half the year, because he'd never bother to change them!

"You're usually on time for stuff! Figured you kept track of it!"

"…We tend to rely on Omega's internal clock," reluctantly, Shadow admitted.

"Huh. Well, alright then! Let me just…"

He dashed off to where he'd left his communicator by his bedside (thankfully undamaged by the disaster with the glass earlier) and put it on, checking what flashed up on its screen as he did. No missed calls or angry messages from Amy, so he wasn't yet in that much trouble.

Ah, ten minutes late? Fashionably late, then! Sonic could work with that.

He ran back into the other room and smiled confidently at Shadow, "Due about now, it seems! You wanna come too?"

"Don't let me interrupt your meeting. I'll be fine here," he pointed to a small bag he'd brought with him earlier, which had ended up on the couch to avoid being muddled up with Sonic's stuff, "I brought a book with me,"

"You sure? Amy'd probably be happy to see you,"

Shadow hesitated, "What will you be at the market for?"

"Eh, I don't really know," Sonic shrugged, "Whatever Amy wants. We might just be browsing,"

"I could look around for something for Omega's birthday,"

He very wisely didn't bring up that the market probably didn't have anything that Omega might be looking for. Not unless Amy had somehow recruited him to go through the black market with her without him doing.

"You know his birthday?" he asked, instead.

"No, but we decided on a date together. If we ever find conformation of his actual date of creation, then I suspect we'll ignore it in favor of our chosen one, anyway,"

Admittedly, that was pretty sweet.

"So you game?" Sonic affirmed.

"Sure," Shadow grunted.

"Great!" he grinned mischievously, "Because when I said earlier that I was already due, I meant I was already late, so we'd better run! Race ya there!"

Amy was probably expecting this from him anyway, so it really wasn't that bad. He took maximum delight from the look of shock and then frustration on his rival's face upon taking in his words then, as he hurried to the front door.

Shadow caught up to be roughly neck and neck with him rather quickly, so he didn't have to worry about giving directions. Not that he necessarily expected Shadow to not know where the market was, but hey, he was unlikely to be able to guess Sonic's exact meeting spot with Amy. It gave Sonic an excuse to have to remain in the lead, as well.

Upon the two of them skidding to a halt in front of her, Amy looked just the usual amount of unimpressed with him, before noticing Shadow, and taking on a half-surprised, half-wary expression.

"You brought company?" Amy asked, motioning towards Shadow.

"I told you I should have stayed behind," Shadow gave him a pointed look.

"Oh, no!" hastily, Amy corrected, "Lovely to see you, Shadow — that's not what I meant. It's just," she rounded on Sonic, hands on hips, "Really, Sonic? You made him late too?"

"I, uh…" he rubbed his quills behind him, "This basically is on time for me…?"

"I was distracting him, anyway,"

"So you can't just blame me!"

Amy sighed, "You're impossible,"

She turned in the direction of the stalls, and Sonic shot Shadow an encouraging thumbs up.

"What do we need today, Amy?" he hummed, remembering his rival's question from earlier.

"I hear they have some lovely craft stands up, at the moment. I thought we could look at getting some decorations?"

For whatever reason, Amy seemed to value his opinion on this sort of thing. She told him to his face words to the effect of 'You're shit at decorating, Sonic', but then liked to show off all of her ideas to him, anyway. Actually, maybe she just wanted him here to know what not to do.

And to be fair to him, what exactly was he going to decorate? The house he barely ever stayed in?

"Sure, sure. Sound good, Shads?"

Sonic anticipated a noncommital, or bland response, the type Shadow had been mostly giving him all day now, but…

"You could use something nice for your place, Sonic. Junk is hardly a decoration,"

He stared at his rival, gaping. Right in front of Amy!? And that was the closest he'd gotten to Shadow's regular bite all day!

"Oh, did he let it get bad again?" Amy giggled, "I swear, he practically uses the lounge as a storage warehouse, sometimes!"

"Would you rather I start leaving my stuff all around your place, Ames?" he put in, wryly.

Technically, he already did leave bits and pieces around at Amy's, but that was mostly since he was there often enough for it to be more convenient to have belongings already left there. And that stuff wasn't the kind of junk Shadow and Amy were complaining about him hoarding, anyway.

"I'd rather you just put it away properly in the first place. Or sort through, see what some of it actually is, because I really don't think you know,"

Sonic knew a lot of people, so that tended to mean a lot of gifts — not all of them useful. That was mostly why he ended up dumping heaps of stuff around his place; if it had been bought specifically for him, he wasn't about to throw it out, but if he didn't have a specific use for it, it still needed somewhere to just chill in disuse.

"We did that this morning, actually," he grinned.

"It was an eyesore," Shadow added.

"Figured I ought to at least make a bit of effort for a guest, haha,"

"Guest?" Amy turned to him, blinking, "Is Shadow staying with you, Sonic?"

"Only for a few days," Shadow was quick to clarify, "…and it's hardly my first choice,"

"Yeah, he's crashing with me for a bit. I brought him here since he was already with me, anyway,"

That and he got the impression that if Shadow's teammates had dumped Shadow over at Sonic's place, he was probably supposed to be at least attempting to keep an eye on the guy. For… whatever reason it was that Shadow currently had time off.

"Do you want to reschedule staying over Friday, then?" carefully, she asked.

"Er… Hey, Shadow, how long do you reckon a 'few days' is, exactly?"

Rouge hadn't been particularly specific when she'd 'explained' the situation earlier.

"I'm not certain," Shadow admitted, "Rouge and Omega are competent agents, so I would expect them to take less time than most, but that being said, I was hardly informed of the exact details of this particular mission,"

"I'll get back to you on that one then, Amy," he said.

Amy was watching him carefully through this entire exchange. Suspicion, he supposed, and, yeah, this situation did probably look a little sketchy from the outside, but Sonic was sure it'd make more sense once he could get Shadow to admit what had actually happened.

Regardless, Amy clearly wasn't satisfied, so when what looked to be craft stands came into view, she gasped loudly, and obviously, and began to tug on Sonic's arm, "Oh, look, Sonic, there! They all look so wonderful, don't they? You need to come with me to the one on the left! And Shadow… Would you mind checking out that other one over there? I'm sure you have appropriate taste,"

She dragged him rather forcibly off, leaving Sonic to only give Shadow a clueless look. His rival looked a little lost too, but dammit, also a little smug.

"You got a problem with him, or something?" he questioned, once they were out of earshot.

"Or something," she answered, "It's just… I'm a little concerned, is all. It doesn't sound like you invited Shadow over, so what exactly did happen? He said something about this not being his first choice…"

"Yeah, so…" sheepishly, he grinned, "I actually don't know, Ames. Rouge swung by earlier and asked me to let him crash, and he just about admitted to me that he's off-duty for G.U.N. at the moment,"

"Off duty? That sounds unlike him… Unlike G.U.N, too…" Amy noted, "Is he okay?"

"I dunno," truthfully, he answered.

Amy's voice turned exasperated, "Sonic…"

"What? I have asked! But when he doesn't want to talk about something, you might as well be talking to a brick wall, seriously. And I don't want to push his boundaries," he explained.

"Still… Rouge coming by is suspicious…"

"Huh? How so? It's not like she's gonna have recruited him to rob all my valuables, or something. Not that I have anything that valuable in that house…" he mused, "And I'm pretty sure she'd want the thrill of a heist on me herself…"

"No, not like that!" huffed Amy, "If he needed somewhere to go, he could have asked you himself, never mind about 'first choices'. But bringing Rouge along would suggest someone more… convincing was needed, for seem reason,"

He chuckled, "I think you have it a little backwards, Ames. It's more like… The 'first choice' would have been staying at his usual place, by himself, if not still just going off with his teammates. Rouge was there to convince him to stay, not me,"

"Oh… It does sound like something's wrong, then. He seemed fine, but that doesn't sound promising…"

It was hard not to turn around to look at Shadow, at that.

"I did ask for the basics, and he told me it was nothing serious," he shrugged, "But I think he's been a little off all morning…"

"How so?"

"Less… confrontational? He's been strangely agreeable, and I think he's seemed a little uncomfortable,"

"You and him not bickering is strange, but doesn't he often seem uncomfortable in these kinds of situations? I thought he just didn't like being around people too much," Amy remarked.

"No, it's… He's not usually like that with me," Sonic dismissed, "I thought he was just cautious around people he doesn't know as well,"

Amy gave him a look, "And he's fine with you, huh?"

She was a little less up in people's faces about romance these days, but she was still more interested in it than Sonic by a long shot. Hence that particular look.

So he and Shadow? Unlikely… Sonic wasn't really looking for a romantic relationship, and he couldn't see himself in any kind of one unless it was extremely non-traditional. He just…. he cared about Shadow a lot, sure, but nothing relationship-worthy.

"Shut up…" he chuckled, good-naturedly.

"Well, I'm going to go check up on him too,"

"You can't help but worry, huh," he grinned.

Classic Amy. She was a good influence on them all.

"Frankly, I think you're not worrying enough, so someone has to," she replied.

"In my defense, he doesn't usually like people fretting over him,"

Amy sighed, "I'll be careful with him. I wouldn't feel right just leaving him, though,"

She looked fairly nonchalant, walking back over to Shadow — he could give her that. Probably still wasn't about to get much from his rival, but it was the thought that counts, right?

He caught Amy declaring, rather loudly, "Well, Sonic is useless with this sort of thing, so I don't suppose you could give me a little hand?"

A little harsh, but an excuse had to excuse. He gave the stand a quick once-over. Yeah… He wouldn't have had the first clue about what here would be best for Amy, anyway.

By the end of the day, Sonic knew about as much as before. If Amy had found out anything, she'd elected to not relay that to him, and he hadn't been actively trying for information, for most of it. That just wasn't really his style.

They'd stopped by Shadow's to grab some extra stuff he thought he might end up wanting, and then had mostly just got caught up out for the rest of the day. Business as usual for them too, really. Some good racing, sparring… He'd convinced Shadow to get lunch with him — that was a win!

But whatever, it was time for him to hit the hay, as it were, and Shadow hadn't keeled over — true to his word — so it was a tomorrow problem.

He met his rival in the front room, perched in the most out of the way corner.

"I'm gonna turn in for the night, dude — want me to set up the couch for you?"

He supposed the other option would be Shadow sharing with him, but… Nah, just because he thought sharing a bed with someone made it easier to sleep, didn't mean Shadow felt the same.

"No thank you," No way. "I won't be sleeping,"

Double no way. What?

"Uh… You won't be?"

"I'm the Ultimate Lifeform. I don't need to sleep every night," flatly, Shadow explained.

Sonic tilted his head, "Sure, but isn't it nice to?"

"…Not for all of us," Shadow said, "And besides, it's easier for you if I'm content where I am, no?"

"I mean… I guess a bit, sure," uncertainly, he admitted, "But it's really no big deal,"

Shadow sighed irritably, "I'm already invading your home space for no good reason. I'd rather not bother you any more. Just go about your regular business,"

"No good reason? Come on, Shads, you don't think I actually believe that, do you?"

Shadow was going to sit there, straight-faced, and tell him he was actually staying overnight at Sonic's house — a boundary neither of them had managed to cross before on either side — and claim it was for no good reason? No way!

"I believe that,"

"Well, I'm pretty sure Rouge wouldn't have shoved you in here if nothing was up. I won't push any further — you can tell me what's going on when you want, but even if there really was no good reason, then so what?" he put on a confident grin, "We can hang out, can't we? You can stay the night if you feel like it,"

That was a thing Sonic did with friends! Well… Not that he was certain he could get Shadow to admit to being his friend. But that was just how his rival rolled.

"I will tell you what happened," Shadow assured him, "I feel it would be rude not to,"

"I'm not askin' you to spill because you need to," he huffed, "I'm just a little bit worried, dude,"

"Why?" Shadow frowned.

Right, he was at the critical juncture, so…

"Couldn't have my rival slipping, could I?" he grinned, punctuating his words with a wink.

Nailed it.

Shadow chuckled softly, but he never quite lost his frown. Typical for him, Sonic supposed, but it wasn't exactly promising.

"Never," he responded, "It would take more than this for me to lose to the likes of you,"

"Uh-huh," content, he smirked.

Shadow grimaced, "Stop that. I thought you were going to bed,"

"I am!" he rushed over to the other edge of the room, "See?"

"Goodnight, Sonic,"

Had it been a strange day? Sure. But not a bad one, he figured.

He woke up in the middle of the night, and this time there wasn't much of a good explanation for it. Though thankfully that also meant there was no broken glass to deal with.

His throat felt dry though, and there were no spare glasses of water left in sight. He didn't think much of heading to the kitchen for one, largely forgetting about Shadow in his less-than-lucid, bleary state. Maybe it would sound cool to say that Shadow hadn't forgotten him, or that Shadow found him in the dark despite that, but that wasn't what happened.

Sonic stopped dead in the entrance to the lounge when he saw a strange orange glow coming from the corner of it.

He was pretty sure he didn't have any lamps that color. Had Shadow brought a flashlight? It didn't look like artificial light, though…

Then Shadow looked up, right at him, and Sonic abruptly realized why exactly that was.

"Uh," eloquently, he said, staring straight into the oddly mesmerizing rings of orange and gold that had replaced Shadow's usual red eyes.

And usually, he liked Shadow's eyes well enough. They were quite a stark color, but he liked red — was maybe even a little jealous of the fact that Shadow got naturally what he had to go super for. He wouldn't have said he spent much time paying attention to them, though. Just enough to know that they definitely weren't supposed to have fiery streaks in them, or emit beams of brilliant orange.

"I thought you were asleep," sharply, Shadow accused.

"I was," Sonic blinked, trying to make sure he wasn't dreaming, "Then I woke up. And uh… Okay, is this a normal thing, or…?"

"…It's been happening most nights since last week,"

He remembered Rouge saying something about a week ago.

Water forgotten, he shuffled over to his rival, and took a seat next to him, still over in that corner.

"Is this what's been worrying Rouge and Omega? I mean, I guess having flashlight eyes suddenly is a little strange, but isn't it kind of useful?"

Shadow puffed out his chest, "I have excellent night vision, anyway,"

"Dodging the question?" he hummed.

"You asked two," Shadow rolled his eyes, making a funny pattern of light in front of them.

"Fine, yeah, that was on me," it was a little cold at night, like this, so he huddled in a tad closer, "What's so bad about this that you got dropped off for me to watch over?"

"Sonic, do you recognize my eyes?"

"Should I?" he squinted, trying to find something familiar in what they'd become, but only really turning up a distinct lack of familiarity. They just looked not like Shadow's usual eyes, and that was it, really.

"Think harder. We've seen them before,"

He racked his brains. Zombot Shadow? No, those were more red, not less. And he'd hardly stuck around long enough to see if they glowed in the dark. Oh, that and Shadow wouldn't know what those looked like, either. Super Shadow? Hm, he didn't think Shadow's eyes changed that much upon going super.

"Not on me," Shadow added.

He huffed a little, "I don't know what exactly you expect me to rem—" Something clicked, and Sonic felt stupid for not clocking the resemblance sooner, "Shoot, sorry, I'm still half asleep. Doom's Eye, right? It's the same pattern,"

Mutely, Shadow nodded.

"So… Black Arms stuff manifesting? Odd timing, but—"

"More than just odd timing," Shadow interrupted, "This isn't supposed to be possible. I'm not supposed to be able to just… suddenly change like this,"

"Oh…" Sonic wanted to offer a hand in comfort, but he wasn't sure that it would be appreciated. "Is it… painful or anything? Do you want me to get you something?"

"No, I can hardly feel it. That's part of what concerns me… Besides, I process most painkillers too quickly for them to have much effect,"

"Me too, man…" he groaned, "I've got some stronger stuff that actually works on me, but if you're fine, you're fine,"

His tolerance was likely lower than Shadow's still, but he'd gone through many an instance of frustration after a long battle of not being able to do anything about pain because the damn painkillers just wouldn't kick in! So if he had problems, he wasn't even sure what kind of drugs would work full stop, on Shadow.

"It only bothers me… psychologically. This is why I told Rouge I'd be fine on my own,"

"Yeah, I don't really see why having Black Arms eyes at night would cause that many problems…"

Maybe Shadow didn't receive any benefit from glowing eyes, but other than being marginally freaked out, they surely weren't harming him, either. Especially not on his own.

"It's not just the eyes," Shadow let out, through clearly gritted teeth, "The traits manifesting at all is a problem, and the eyes have been the tamest so far,"

That explained why there'd been any concern at all… Was Shadow experiencing random Black Arms traits manifesting? And then vanishing? His eyes weren't around during the day, so either this was the strangest case of werewolfism ever — yet stranger than Sonic's own bout of it, somehow — or the traits just came and went as they pleased.

"What else has been going on?" he asked.

Shadow's nose twitched, "I grew… scales, two days ago. Fortunately, they were only in select patches, and flaked off after a few hours, but it was a rather disturbing experience,"

"Like, on top of your quills?" morbidly curious, Sonic questioned. Shadow's grim nod was all the answer he needed. "Oh, dude. Yikes,"

"It has not been pleasant," Shadow sighed.

The other hedgehog was curled in on himself by this point, Sonic noted. His knees were tucked right up to his chest, and he looked sort of… small, in a way he hadn't expected to see in Shadow. Chaos, he didn't even want to imagine what was going through his head…

This was concerning, of course. Sonic wasn't the type of guy to sweat the small details of stuff, but he knew what it was like to lose Shadow, and yeah, he wasn't a fan. Whatever this was, he just hoped that it wouldn't be leading to a repeat experience.

And it wouldn't be — not if he had anything to say about it.

He sighed himself, looked away from his rival, and let a grin overtake his features, "Not much we can do about it now, yeah?"

"Rouge is after my files. Until then, no, I suppose not,"

"Then there's no point in stressing about it, right?" he continued, "Just…" This next part was a bit of a gamble, but it would do Sonic's peace of mind some good, too. "How about this? I know you said you don't need to sleep right now, but it might do some good to get your mind off of things. So—"

"I'm not about to make you set up somewhere for me in the middle of the fucking night," Shadow huffed.

"Wasn't about to suggest that! You think I want to do that either?"

"What are you babbling about now?"

"Come with me, Shadow. I think sharing usually helps sleep, y'know?" he offered a genuine smile.

"Sharing…. what, exactly?" suspiciously, Shadow returned.

"What do you think?" Sonic chuckled, "A bed. Maybe you think it's a little childish for the Ultimate Lifeform, but I know plenty of people who find it comforting,"

"You can't seriously be suggesting that we…" he trailed off.

"If it'd actually make you uncomfortable to share, then that's fine! But otherwise… I don't bite! Don't kick, either. Or hug! I used to be a pretty restless sleeper, but I've been told I'm not as bad, these days,"

"I couldn't promise the same about me," shyly, Shadow admitted.

"Can't be worse than the glass yesterday," teasingly, he shrugged.

"You're a fool, Sonic," his rival grunted, but he was standing up — actually going through with this.

Sonic tried not to let his surprise show. Nor his excitement, because come on, it wasn't every day that Shadow the Hedgehog agreed to share a bed with you. Apparently, it wasn't every day that Shadow the Hedgehog even slept!

"We can… I don't know, brainstorm this more tomorrow," he yawned, "But personally, I can't think straight right now!

There was an amused tilt to Shadow's expression as he spoke, "Can you ever?"

As out of it as he still mostly was, Sonic didn't take this as the, in hindsight, rather obviously intended meaning of Shadow just calling him a rash idiot, and instead focused on definitely the wrong word. 'Straight', huh?

"If it saves me coming out, I guess," he chuckled.

"What?" Shadow blinked.

He felt a little stupid.

"…That wasn't what you meant, was it," flatly, Sonic responded.

"No…" slowly, his rival agreed, "What exactly are you talking about?"

So maybe Shadow was from the fifties, but he was pretty sure the guy knew about sexuality and shit. How well? Who could say. But he (probably) lived with Rouge, so no way could he be entirely ignorant.

"Not how imagined doing this," he mumbled to himself, "See, I thought you were implying I wasn't straight, for whatever reason, and yeah, I'm not,"

"Oh," Shadow watched him owlishly, those big glowing eyes not doing him any favors in terms of playing things nonchalantly, "I see. What do you… identify as?"

"Not the biggest fan of labels, me, but… Aroace, I guess. I used to think bi-leaning, but… Never enjoyed romance, or any of that, y'know?"

It wasn't really Amy's fault considering his only communication had been that he thought of boys and girls the same, but her dragging him around on dates like she'd used to try to had been a big indicator of just how much he was not interested in a traditional romance. Maybe it was a harsh way to say it, but mostly he just wasn't about to have a relationship cramp his style. He always needed to be able to do things his way.

Almost imperceptibly, Shadow's ears perked up, "I identify as aspec myself, actually,"

"Oh, yeah?" he grinned.

"Demi and ace, I believe. Homoromantic, outside of that. I think I could enjoy a relationship, but it would have to be with someone I… knew very well,"

Not that anyone would ever be bold enough to say it to Shadow's face, but they'd all sort of been under the assumption that he was some flavor of gay for a while.

"And here I thought you might not know what I was talking about," he chuckled.

"I've done my research," Shadow explained, "It's… tough to deal with any kind of identity crisis without questioning yourself on such matters at least a little,"

In general, Sonic wore his queerness pretty openly. It was hard not to, to be fair, when he had two big scars on his chest to prove it, in terms of his gender anyway. But regardless, it felt kind of nice to talk things through with Shadow a bit. Find someone like him, who just wasn't all that fussed with romance and whatnot.

…Or, maybe it would have been, if it weren't currently the middle of the night.

"Yeah, that tracks…" he gave a lazy thumbs-up, "Well, nice to know, dude, but… I still want to get some sleep,"

"If I ever need to fight you again, I should attack at night," Shadow noted, "I'd kick your ass,"

"Dude, you are the worst," he groaned, finally flopping down face-first into his pillow.

He felt Shadow slide in carefully beside him, and pulled the covers over the top of the two of them. He could tell from the spots of light in his vision, despite his closed eyes, that Shadow was still open-eyed, and looking around, it seemed. Sonic hoped he wasn't uncomfortable.

"Do you have enough room?" quietly, his rival asked.

"Huh? Yeah, all good. I can sleep just about anywhere, with just about any space, so don't mind me if I just…" he trailed off and wiggled in a little closer.

There. Hopefully that was at least a little comforting for Shadow. The guy deserved it. Trying night so far, and all that.

To be honest, he was a little surprised to see that Shadow was still there, when he woke up. It was already pretty light outside…

"Heh, maybe the Ultimate Lifeform needs more sleep than he thinks," Sonic murmured to himself.

It was impossible to tell what was going on with Shadow's eyes now, on account of them still being shut, but with what he'd been told last night, Sonic was pretty sure they'd be back to normal. That was almost a shame, really. They were, admittedly, kind of cool.

Carefully, he pulled back the covers to get out of bed. Took a good stretch, adjusted his eyes to the light a little more, all of that good stuff. And then he turned his attention back to Shadow, and, well…

Oh, fuck, what was that?

An extra appendage had sprouted on Shadow overnight, and now that Sonic was looking at it properly, he was able to identify it as a tail. Just a whole ass tail curled loosely around from his tailbone to over his legs.

Now, sure, hedgehogs usually had tails. Small smiley ones, though. Not… Long spindly ones that became decorated with scales part way down and flicked about during sleep! That last part was a little endearing, actually…. But still, overall? Not good!

Sonic thought he was showing a lot of restraint in both not yelling, and also not just reaching out to touch it. Chaos, scales on a hedgehog (hybrid, but that wasn't usually as obvious as it was currently) looked weird, but if that didn't just make him want to see what they felt like even more. Shadow probably wouldn't appreciate that though, and he'd just feel plain weird trying anything like that whilst the other was asleep

Or, apparently it didn't matter how quiet or careful Sonic was being, because Shadow began to stir anyway. Maybe removing the blanket had been the trigger; he couldn't say.

In good news, Shadow's eyes had returned to normal.

"Do you normally stare at people whilst they're asleep, hedgehog?" gruffly — Sonic couldn't decide if that made him sound more or less awake than the average person who'd just woken up — Shadow asked, sounding a tad embarrassed.

"Hey, Shads…" he winced, "No, I swear I don't usually — it's just… Uh…" He pointed at the tail.

Shadow found what Sonic was talking about, stared at it, scowled at it for good measure, and then sat abruptly up.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," he growled.

"First time with… that?"

"No, I usually wake up in the morning having grown strange reptilian appendages," severely, Shadow bit back, "What do you think, Sonic?"

He sighed, "Sorry, just… What the heck are we supposed to do about it? This looks like more than just a few scales,"

Experimentally, Shadow swished the tail around a bit. The movement still seemed unbelievably cool to Sonic, in a way, but he kept that to himself.

"Well, since I don't suppose you'd allow me to cite 'hack it off' as an option—"

"Pretty sure that'd cause gratuitous bleeding all over my floor, and you said that would not be happening," startled by the suggestion, Sonic interjected.

"Exactly, so as I was saying, removing it myself is not an option, so I suppose I shall have to just… leave it,"

He was glad Shadow wasn't actually considering impromptu makeshift surgery, but the fact that his rival had thought of that at all probably explained why Rouge had been quite so insistent on him not staying by himself. Would Shadow have actually just got out a kitchen knife or something and started— He didn't want to finish that thought; he'd prefer to just stick to 'Glad Shadow was with him'.

"What do you, er, usually do when a new trait shows?"

Carefully, he moved himself back over to the bed to sit next to Shadow. He felt sort of weird hovering around him, like he had been doing.

"It depends on what it is, I suppose," Shadow answered, "There's never been anything I can do about the eyes, so I'm only able to just leave them. And like I told you last night, the last time I had scales, I didn't need to pick them off myself — they just fell off after a while,"

"I don't think violent removal of them is ever going to be a good solution," he grimaced.

Shadow shrugged, "This all got my claws growing, as well, and it was easiest to just file those back down," he frowned, "Shit, I should probably check those,"

Sonic tried his best to be cool about Shadow just casually removing his gloves in front of him. He's an alien with likely little concept of mobian social customs, he reminded himself.

"Huh, what do you know," he noted, "Claws,"

"Hm?" Shadow questioned, "These are normal for me, though. Do you not…?"

Biting back his embarrassment for the sake of helping Shadow, Sonic removed one of his own gloves to show the distinct lack of claws most hedgehogs had.

"Pretty sure that's just a you thing, dude. See?"

He'd had claws as a werehog, but otherwise? Yeah, not so much…

"Strange," Shadow said, as they both put their gloves back on, and Sonic thought he sounded a little off.

"I mean, they're cool!" he reassured, "And if they're normally like this, then there's no problem, yeah?"

"I just couldn't imagine why…" Shadow trailed off and shook his head, "Well, I suppose I can do some things better than you, thanks to these,"

"Uh, like what?' bemused, he questioned.

They wore gloves all the time — what difference would little claws make?

"Opening cans," smugly, his rival suggested.

"Or you could, y'know, use a can opener…" Sonic laughed.

Shadow joined in with him, gaining Sonic a nice view of his rival's smile for his efforts.

Then Shadow's tail, little barbed end and everything, swished into his back, and, huh, he was just going to take that as a good sign. Of Shadow being happy, hopefully — although the other looked mortified upon realizing what had happened.

"Sorry…" he muttered, "I'm not used to having a tail,"

"Technically, you always had one," Sonic snickered, "It was just…" he wiggled his own tail for maximum effect, "Smaller,"

Shadow smacked him with his tail again, this time clearly on purpose, "It's different, trust me,"

"We'll figure it out," easily, he responded, "How about this — we could call Rouge? Maybe she'll have figured something out for you,"

"I think it's unlikely that she'll have had time to swipe my files," Shadow mused, "But she might have thought of something, " he shook his head, “I need coffee beans first,"

Sonic couldn't make up what happened next. Shadow the Hedgehog — Ultimate Lifeform, trained combatant and agent, Sonic's greatest rival — stood up, only to stumble a few steps in, only avoiding falling flat on his face by grabbing at the nearest wall.

"Having some trouble there, Shads?" amused, he asked, hopping off the bed himself to go hover next to his rival.

"Shut your mouth, faker," Shadow seethed. An instinctual 'Make me' nearly popped out, but no, that would be weird, wouldn't it? He left Shadow to keep talking, "It's… My balance is off,"

"First thing in the morning, not quite with it yet?" grinning, Sonic suggested.

"Not at all," Shadow rolled his eyes, getting himself back up to head for the door, "I'd like to see you try walking when you've suddenly changed shape due to having grown an entire extra limb overnight,"

"Is a tail really a limb?" he pondered, following the other hedgehog out into the kitchen.

"It moves like one,"

"Maybe if you know how to work it," he huffed, "But you've never had a tail like this before, right? So you got no muscle memory for it,"

"It's no more challenging to control than a freshly regrown arm," Shadow boasted.

Oh, Chaos, tell him that didn't mean…

Sonic chuckled uneasily, "Is that you… speaking from experience?"

"Where do you keep your beans?" Shadow asked, "And, yes. My regenerative abilities were designed to be top-notch,"

"Top shelf of the left cupboard," faintly. he answered.

He supposed he shouldn't be surprised that the science project created for the title of the 'Ultimate Lifeform' could regenerate, but… Maybe he just hadn't considered it before.

Moving swiftly on from that, Sonic retrieved a spoon for his guest — because Shadow had sophistication standards and would only eat his… raw coffee beans with a spoon — and chucked it at him, offering only a quick, "Catch!"

Shadow caught it by moving his tail in a whip-like manner to wrap around it, that little spiked edge keeping it best in place.

"You could have passed that to me," he sighed.

Sonic huffed out a laugh, "You caught it! And… Getting used to the tail then, are we?"

"Hardly," Shadow scoffed, "I'm just a quick learner. With any luck, we'll find a way to remove it still, anyway"

Huh, yeah, it must be pretty worrying for Shadow to have to consider the possibility that unless one of them figured out what was going on with him, he might be stuck with a tail… forever. Sonic knew what it was like to have a body that felt like it didn't match you, and he'd hardly wish that upon Shadow.

"Sure we will!" he assured, "No alien mutations are gonna get the best of you,"

If nothing else, Sonic wasn't about to let them.

Chapter Text

Shadow settled the two of them on the couch to call the rest of his team, after breakfast. Personally, Sonic would have preferred to be up and about for this, but they seemed to be doing a video call, and it'd probably be rude to not get in shot for at least the start of it.

Rouge played it casual upon accepting the call, but Sonic could tell she seemed a little stressed, all the same.

"Shadow!" she grinned, "Lovely to hear from you. Omega's been fretting,"

"CORRECTION: ROUGE HAS BEEN FRETTING, AND I HAVE BEEN RESPONDING TO HER APPROPRIATELY,"

"Can it, Megs," Rouge swatted at him, playfully.

Shadow sighed fondly, "I'm fine, Rouge,"

"Well," Sonic stuck his head in frame, "Hey, guys, uh—"

"Blue," Rouge winked, "Nice to see you too,"

"Yeah…" he winced, "Anyway, hope we're not interrupting anything, but we need a quick chat,"

"QUERY: WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO SHADOW?" Omega demanded, and hah… It was easy to be reminded of just quite how intimidating Omega could be when he was staring you down through a phone screen, looking like he was ready to march straight over to your house and just start firing, if he found out you'd let something happen to his teammate.

"I'm still not in any pain," Shadow was quick to insist, "But the traits have gotten a little more… extreme," he wiggled his new tail into the view of the camera.

"Holy fuck," Rouge cursed, "Yeah, okay… More extreme,"

"It grew in overnight, last night," Sonic added.

He assumed Rouge and Omega knew Shadow's regular patterns of manifesting traits better than him, so he'd thought it important to clarify. It probably didn't mean much, considering what Shadow had said about his eyes had implied nightly changes were the norm, but it could still be yet worth noting.

Omega shifted his focus to Shadow, "IT IS A NICE TAIL, SHADOW. IT COULD USE SOME MORE SPIKES, HOWEVER, IN MY OPINION,"

"That is the problem with scales," slowly, Shadow nodded, "They're less spikey than quills,"

The tail was definitely more smooth than spikey, Sonic noted, as Shadow continued to thrash it about beside him.

"Listen, hon, we only just got set up here, so we haven't had much of a chance to go file-hunting, yet, but I'll be making it number one pr—"

"It's not that bad," Shadow interjected, "Keep the mission as priority,"

"Shadow…" Rouge faltered, "Are you sure?"

"What do you suppose G.U.N. will do if they find you skipping work to retrieve classified information from them, and then decide it pertinent to investigate why?"

Sonic guessed they probably hadn't told their organization the details of why Shadow was off, then. He wouldn't have told them either — jackasses, the lot of them. In fact, he was pretty sure Shadow counted as legally a weapon for them still, or something gross like that, so even more reason to not let them know what was up.

"I wouldn't be caught," argued Rouge, "And they already think you're still recovering, so even if I was, it wouldn't be that strange,"

"And then they'd still chew you out for theft and ditching!" Shadow growled, "And we've never needed my files for injuries, before — they'd most certainly find that suspicious,"

"Oh, then fuck me for worrying still, I guess!" Rouge bit back.

He winced a little bit at the visible irritation on both Shadow and Rouge's faces.

"C'mon, couldn't fault you for concern," Sonic interrupted, "But I've got him, for now. It's not like we aren't trying to figure stuff out on our end, too — maybe we won't even end up needing the files!"

"I know," she sighed, cooling off a little, "I'm just… super pissed about all of this, I guess. Shouldn't have to steal from our own fuckin' employers to get documents for Shadow's health because they'd stick him back in a tube for tests if we told them,"

"ROUGE, I WILL SHOOT THEM FOR YOU, WHEN WE GET BACK,"

"Thanks, big guy," Rouge snorted, "But I'm not sure that'd actually…. help us out here,"

"IT WOULD MAKE ME FEEL BETTER," Omega insisted.

"We could always just fuck around with command another way," with a slight smile, Shadow suggested.

Team Dark's whole deal with G.U.N. was funny, huh? Sonic was a little surprised he'd never asked about it before.

"I like that plan," Rouge smirked, "You'd better keep yourself safe until then, yeah, sweetheart?" she dropped her smile, "I mean it, Shadow. If anything else happens, text me,"

"Fine," quietly, Shadow agreed.

"And Sonic?" she asked, mask back up for flattery, "You'd better keep a good eye on him,"

"I WILL BE VERY UPSET IF SHADOW IS HURT UNDER YOUR WATCH,"

"You got it!" hurriedly, he nodded, "He's in good care. Right, Shads?"

"You're a nuisance," grouchily, Shadow deadpanned.

Rouge laughed sweetly, "Well, alright, thanks for checking in, you two. We'll just this mission done ASAP then,"

"ENDING TRANSMISSION," Omega noted, "GOODBYE, SHADOW,"

Shadow gave each of them an appreciative nod, before ending the call.

That had certainly been… informative, about the situation, even if Sonic wasn't the one who was supposed to be being informed of anything.

"Dude…" loftily, he exhaled, swinging back against the couch, "G.U.N. is just the literal worst,"

"You don't say," dryly, Shadow responded, settling down more himself. Or, at the very least, his tail settled on the cushions behind him, part of it appearing to settle in the gap between the seat and back.

"Why'd you guys even put up with them?"

"Not like we have much choice," Shadow shrugged, "Omega and I are registered to them. If it's a choice between working with them on inside, where we can at least keep an eye on them, or be hunted down by them, it's a fairly easy decision,"

"I guess…" he frowned, "But keeping your files out of your access is a really crappy thing to do,"

"We've been on better terms since the Black Arms invasion, not good ones. I'm still classed as enough of a threat to where they feel the need to hoard my paperwork," flatly, Shadow explained.

"You deserve better, dude,"

Shadow snorted, "It's them you need to tell that to,"

Something else was bothering Sonic, too — something else that Rouge had mentioned that had sounded just a bit off… He scrunched up his face in thought, trying to recall.

"Oh," he realized aloud, "Hey, what did Rouge mean when she said you guys told them you were 'still recovering'? Recovering from what?"

"That's… Likely the catalyst of all of this, if I'm—"

A sharp buzzing sound interrupted him.

"Uh… Shoot, sorry, that's Amy calling. I'll pick this right back up in a sec, I swear," He zipped over to his room, and called back, "Don't go anywhere!"

He could only imagine Shadow's dry response to that…

Hurriedly, he picked up the call, hoping to Chaos that this was something quick. Shadow was actually about to talk, out there!

"Hey, Ames…" he winced, "Not a great time, actually. What's up?"

"Oh, am I interrupting something?"

"Uh… Kind of? Just… Y'know, Shadow stuff,"

"Convenient," she giggled, "I was calling to ask about him, actually. Is he doing okay? I was still a little worried after yesterday,"

"Well… I figured out the issue at least," Sonic said, "Not sure I can share it or anything, but… We're coping. I'll let him know you were askin',"

"Need me to drop anything off for you?"

"Amy, we can grab our own stuff," he chuckled, "He's not holed up sick, or anything. He's with me in case some… stuff happens, basically, so I can afford to run out real quick if we need some juice, or something,"

Her intentions were sweet, but she might have been going a little overboard, considering she didn't actually know if anything that major was even wrong.

"Ah, sorry," sheepishly, she sighed, "It's just… I tried badgering Rouge a little bit too, and she did seem pretty worried,"

"It's no problem!" he was quick to assure, "And, yeah, Rouge has been on hyper-alert about the whole deal. So it's nice that you care, but really, we'll be fine,"

"If you're sure,"

"I'll be sure to let you know if there is anything you can help us with," he chuckled.

"Alright, I can work with that," Amy smiled, "I'll leave you to it with him, then?"

"Yeah, thanks. See ya later, Ames,"

He flicked off the call a little quickly, but in his defense, he had told her he was in a hurry… And Amy knew him; they'd been friends for a good while. She'd know he didn't mean anything by it.

Not wanting to waste any more time — as if he ever liked wasting time — Sonic slid back into the lounge to rejoin Shadow.

"She was just worried about you too, actually," laughing, he explained.

"Rose was?" Shadow blinked.

"She thought you seemed a little down yesterday, so yeah. She'd perceptive, like that,"

"Hm," impassively, Shadow said, "I appreciate it, I suppose,"

"I'll let her know," he nodded, before impatience took its grip, "So… What were you saying before? About recovery?"

"Right, I…" Shadow moved to sit up slightly, at which point they both heard a strange sound.

It was sort of like… a tearing? At first, Sonic thought something must have been ripping his couch, but once Shadow started moving again, having paused at the initial sound, he decided that couldn't be it. It didn't sound like fabric. To be honest, it was a pretty quiet noise, but still one that drew attention to it easily.

Shadow had stopped talking to investigate, eventually just standing up to examine the couch. It was at this point that they both realized what had happened.

Because there, on Sonic's couch, sat the tail Shadow had just recently grown.

"Oh my Chaos," he muttered, most definitely in horror.

It was severed right through, and he was sure that if he looked at it from the right angle, he'd be able to see all the tissue and muscle and whatnot inside of it. Even worse, it was still twitching, too. Violently. As if it really were still attached to Shadow, and he was thrashing it around.

"I thought you were in favor of not hacking it off!" aghast, he exclaimed.

Shadow shook his head, "I didn't. There's no blood, see?"

"Then what happened!? There's a severed lizard tail on my couch, man!"

Said tail continued to writhe in place. Sonic had to tear his vision away from it.

"It's not a lizard tail," affronted, Shadow frowned, "I'm many things, but not part lizard, as far as I'm aware. But I suppose perhaps it is behaving as a lizard's tail might,"

"Meaning…?" he huffed, "Or…Oh… Wait, is this about that thing? That some of them can do? Regrowing tails?"

"Autotomy," Shadow corrected, "Self-amputation,"

"Not helping your case,"

"It wasn't me, Sonic. I'd guess that it just got caught in your couch, and that was enough to trigger it to detach,"

Seriously? That was a pretty lousy defense mechanism if it was triggered that easily… Wasn't this thing only supposed to happen in dire situations?

"I don't think my couch has that tight a grip on anything stuck in it," he countered.

"No, but as I've said — the traits seem to usually disappear themselves. I'd assume it's why the tail was able to be dropped in the first place. The couch just gave it enough of a push — or pull, I suppose — to let it slip loose,"

"Huh," he finally let a grin slide back into place, "I can't decide if that's insanely cool, or insanely creepy,"

"It's a good sign, surely," Shadow mused, "My body must be fighting off the changes, hence why they get rid of themselves so easily,"

"We've just got to stop them forming in the first place then, right?"

"Easier said than done, but yes," his rival nodded.

"Great, great…" he winced, "Then… What are we doing about that?" he pointed at the tail that was still somehow flopping about.

"You said Rose was willing to do us a favor?" Shadow hummed.

"I can't give her a severed limb, Shadow!"

"We can wait for it to stop moving, first,"

"She will still not want it," he grimaced, "Would you?"

Shadow hesitated, "No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't want to be reminded of this whole ordeal,"

"New plan!" widely, he grinned.

Those blankets he could have gotten out for Shadow last night were still sitting not-at-all-neatly in his cupboard. So then, as long as neither of them wanted to use the couch for the next few days, problem solved!

He rushed over to find one, then threw it carelessly over the couch. It unfolded itself whilst it floated down, and landed on a heap on top of its intended target. The damn thing's movement was admittedly still a little visible through it, but that sounded like it wouldn't be a problem by later.

"I think we leave it to deal with another time,"

"That's…" Shadow struggled, "Foolish, but I suppose I concur,"

"You, uh… Okay then, dude? You just lost a freaking limb. Does it hurt or anything?"

Sonic was mostly implying that his offer of painkillers from the night before was still standing, but he also doubted that Shadow would take them, even if he was in a good deal of pain. Still, he figured it couldn't hurt to ask.

"My pain tolerance is quite high," Shadow said, "I don't know if it's supposed to be painful, but I didn't feel much,"

"That's good at least," he replied, "So it's not sore at all? Or like, does it feel weird? Going from short tail to long tail to no tail?"

Shadow rolled his eyes, but there was a slight tint of amusement to his scowl, "I've had worse. And I doubt it will take that long to regrow. Regeneration is not nearly so lengthy a process as it is for many,"

"You mentioned that you'd done this before," Sonic nodded.

Hinted at, really, but ah, what was the difference?

"I have," his rival agreed, "So I'd rather just put this whole ordeal behind me. Let's…" he stopped, clearly not sure what to say, "What exactly do you usually do in your free time, Sonic?"

He scratched the side of his head, "Uh… Run around, I guess? I spend a lot of time at Tails's Lab bothering him, but that's…"

"Of course you do…" Dare Sonic suggest he seemed to find this information endearing? "That, then. Let's race,"

The cockiness came easily, when he was being challenged.

"You sure you up to this? Not going to trip again because your balance is off?"

Shadow grinned, fangs visible and glinting, "You wish, hedgehog,"

"We'll see about that!" he laughed, already making to leave the room.

It only occurred to him once they were both out the door and tussling about in the plains just beyond his house that this probably counted as the kind of change they should probably update Rouge about. Ah, well, if Shadow had forgotten too, then they'd just have to message her later.

The evening was significantly quieter, but Shadow seemed happier, at least. Who knew, a good afternoon of him and Sonic beating the crap out of each other — friendly competition, if you would — was all he really needed. Admittedly, Sonic had tried to go a little easy on him, this time. He was pretty sure Shadow had noticed, but both of them would probably rather die than admit that. Whatever it took to not get Sonic hunted by Omega…

They sorted all of their little jobs, Shadow texting Rouge about the tail business earlier, and Sonic updating Amy that they were still fine, for now. The tail itself was still just stashed on the couch, but… Yeah, Sonic still had no idea what to do with it.

Shadow actually caught him reading, this time. He'd been planning to probably head off to bed soon, and a little bit of light reading never hurt. He tried not to be too offended at the surprised look on his rival's face upon seeing this scene.

"Sonic," hesitantly, the other hedgehog called out.

Sonic looked up from the page he was on, "What's up?"

"I suppose you'll be turning in for the night, soon," blandly, Shadow stated.

"Probably, yeah. Why? Do you need me for something before then?"

"Not… as such,"

He stuck his bookmark in, and tossed the book aside. It was at this point that he got a better look at Shadow, and noticed that the other hedgehog looked notably a little bit tired. He was swaying on his feet slightly in the doorway, and his eyes just looked a little dull.

"You doing okay there?" tentatively, he asked.

"Regeneration often saps a lot of my energy," quietly, Shadow expounded.

"So… Oh, are you saying you're going to be sleeping again, tonight?" Then it really sunk in. "Wait… You want to share with me again?"

His rival crossed his arms and looked away, "It's not like I could take your couch tonight,"

Not unless he fancied sharing with a severed tail.

"Yeah… I guess not," he grimaced, "Well, sure thing, dude! It's no issue!"

At this, Shadow shuffled further in, and stood by the bedside. Sonic had been laid flat across it, and now he had to look up to meet his rival's eyes. Still their regular ruby color, for now.

"Thanks," stiffly, Shadow responded, "And… It came to my attention that I never adequately answered your question, earlier,"

"Huh, what do you know? I totally forgot about that!" he laughed.

"I take it you'd still like an answer?"

"If one's still available,"

What had Shadow managed to get out about this incident earlier? Well, that it had been a catalyst, of some kind, if he recalled correctly. That it had G.U.N. fooled into thinking he needed time off… In that respect, it didn't sound like an especially great story, but if Shadow felt comfortable enough to share it, then yeah, Sonic was pretty damn curious.

"I wasn't trying to stall earlier," Shadow sighed, finally taking a seat beside Sonic, "Just… Inconvenient timing, I suppose,"

"Don't sweat it, dude! You never had to tell me — it just sounded like some bad stuff had happened even before all of this,"

"I told you I'd let you know if there was anything dire going on, and whilst this is certainly no longer dire… If I was here a week ago, you'd have needed to know," his last word was punctuated with a slight chuckle.

"An injury, I presume?"

Shadow nodded, "I was shot on a mission,"

He was what? Only a week ago!?

"Is that— How are you—" Sonic fumbled, "Shadow, I don't say this lightly, but what the hell, dude!? Are you sure you're fine!?"

"That's the thing," his rival scowled, "I am fine. The wound healed remarkably quickly, even by my standards. I should have been holed up at least all week, but it had reduced to only a mild gash by even the next day,"

"How'd it even happen?"

"You don't get to use guns without being put in a situation where you might also be at risk of them being used on you. I got a tad… careless,"

"A G.U.N, mission, then?" he affirmed.

"Unless there's another type of 'mission' I should be on," Shadow shrugged.

"We had to report the injury to them, obviously, though we didn't report the accelerated healing process. I was proud of it, at first. I thought I was improving, but then the other side effects started, and now I'm not so sure what's going on,"

"That some story," Sonic noted, with an appreciative whistle, "Can I…? I mean, where's the, uh, bullet wound?"

Shadow offered him his right arm. Sonic sat up to see, and after a few moments of feeling kind of creepy scanning his rival's arm like this, he spotted a faint pale scar. He looked to Shadow for confirmation, and the other nodded.

"That doesn't look only a week old," he noted.

"No… I'm not sure many would even be able to see it, let alone determine what it is," his rival agreed.

"And the traits only started appearing after it healed all funny like this?"

"I confirmed it with Rouge as soon as it started happening — the only time she's seen anything even close to most of these changes on me would be when my eyes glow when I'm using my chaos powers. It's not the same, though. The pattern is most certainly Black Arms in nature,"

And Shadow of all people was mostly likely to remember what the Black Arms had eyes like.

"What's it actually like when they form?" he asked.

If there was a tell, maybe it could be a clue. And even if not that, then it could be useful for Sonic to know; with a bit of luck, he could end up being able to warn Shadow about upcoming changes.

There was a pause, before Shadow groaned and pinched his forehead, "Just wait a moment and you'll see,"

"Huh?" he said, a little unnerved by the way Shadow basically stuck his face right up to him after this.

But then, sure as day, he watched a ring form around the edge of Shadow's pupils, and multicolor tendrils spread out from there. The glow came in steadily, until the pattern settled, and its intensity stopped varying with that.

"Can you feel that?" dumbfounded, Sonic questioned.

"Sort of," Shadow hummed, "Not the change itself, but I've noticed that there's usually a slight… twinge in the affected area before changes set in. And I can see that something on my face has suddenly started glowing, of course,"

"Weird," he replied, "I've been through my share of transformations, and I'm not usually so lucky,"

Shadow probably didn't know what he was talking about, but eh.

"Perks of being the Ultimate Lifeform," Shadow grinned.

"Isn't it because the 'Ultimate Lifeform' needed alien DNA you even have this problem right now?" Sonic countered.

"I'm tired," Shadow deflected, "Shut up, and let's get some sleep,"

Sonic snorted, but yeah, he could probably do with catching a few Zs himself right now, as it were. He jumped off the mattress to free up the blanket, with Shadow doing the same. It only took one quick trip to shut the curtains and turn off the lights, and then he dove back underneath that blanket. Despite this being their second night sharing, Shadow still followed him onto the bed cautiously, and mostly clung to his edge.

"Come on, there's more room than that…" he huffed, pulling Shadow closer by the waist.

"What if I grow another appendage in the night and need the extra space for that?" Shadow argued, but Sonic was pretty sure he was just embarrassed, and making excuses.

"Shove me aside in your sleep then. I'll probably sleep through it,"

He wasn't so sure about that himself — he fell asleep easily, not stayed asleep easily — but whatever, quite literally, helped Shadow fall asleep at night, right?

"If you insist," Shadow sighed, squirming just a little bit closer.

Carefully, Sonic removed the hand he had placed around his rival, but to his surprise, Shadow let out a little disappointed squeak.

"You okay there?"

"You can… keep your hand where it was," lightly Shadow coughed, and buried his face into the pillow, "If you'd like,"

Sweet. Sonic complied, and then shut his eyes.

This time, when he woke up, Shadow was gone, but he could hear rustling in the kitchen — quite the telling sign of where his rival had gone. He'd clearly been careful leaving Sonic to sleep, too. The blanket had been placed right back over him so delicately tha the imprint on the mattress from where Shadow had been sleeping was virtually undisturbed. Or, well, it was until Sonic rolled out of bed, anyway.

He tracked down his rival to the kitchen, preparing his morning coffee beans, as per usual.

Shadow didn't seem as tense as yesterday morning, so Sonic initially figured that there had been no further transformation over night, but then he noticed two things.

One: aw, Shadow's tail had started to grow back, but it was nowhere near full size yet, and that was admittedly kind of adorable. He would guess that the fleshy patch over Shadow's tailbone being covered was probably more comfortable for his rival, too.

Two: there had been another trait that had manifested, or at least attempted to manifest, overnight, but chances were that Shadow himself had just had no idea. Just between the spines on his back, there were two raised arches, each somewhat sharp, covering what Sonic would guess was bone with scales. He hadn't been immediately sure what they were, but they sort of looked like the beginnings of wings.

He tried for casual, "Sleep well?"

Shadow jumped, and whirled around to greet him, "Sonic, I didn't hear you come in," he smirked, "I hadn't even realized you could be quiet,"

"Oh, haha," Sonic rolled his eyes, "I see your tail's coming back,"

"Not the Black Arms one, I should hope,"

"Nah, looks like a regular ol' hedgey one, to me, but, uh…"

He didn't seem to do a good job of masking his expression.

"Dammit, I thought I'd gotten through it unchanged," Shadow growled.

"Don't think these ones are a big deal, it's just… They look like they gave up halfway through, actually,"

Just slightly, Shadow's expression lightened. He still looked pretty pissed, but maybe… marginally more optimistic?

"And what are they?" defeatedly, he sighed.

"Wings, I think? But it's a little hard to tell. I think your spines stopped them growing in properly," he walked up to Shadow, "Here, I can…"

Gently, he traced the left of the two stumps with his finger. Shadow jolted at the touch, at first, but he seemed to melt into it.

"This could yet be a good sign," his rival remarked, a little uncertainly, "Though I'm not entirely certain how I'm supposed to be rid of these naturally,"

"Pretty sure we thought that about the tail, too," Sonic chuckled, "And maybe it'll be like the eyes! Just revert back to how it was before for no good reason,"

"I would think that it'd be easier to change the way my eyes appear than change my bone structure," Shadow huffed.

"Eh, your body grew 'em — it can probably get rid of them too. Like… Losing teeth, or something,"

"That's a nice thought,"

Well, it was better than thinking he was going to actually have to let Shadow have something hacked off, he figured, so it was what he was going with.

"We probably ought to actually get rid of that tail today," he noted, "Before it actually starts making a mess. Wanna, I dunno, bury it or something?"

"I… That would probably be for the best. I doubt G.U.N. would ever be able to find out about it, that way," Shadow hesitated, "…And I know a nice a place,"

"Oh, cool. My pick would have just been out front, or something. And that's kinda lame,"

"I dread to think what else we'd find digging up out there, if that's your default,"

Maybe there was some stuff out there — Sonic genuinely didn't remember. He knew he hadn't buried anything important. Half the point of this house was to keep that kind of stuff safe and in one place.

Not that it mattered, apparently. If Shadow had a spot in mind, well, it was his, uh… severed limb, wasn't it?

"Could say the same to you, couldn't I?" he replied, winking.

"There's nothing else buried there," Shadow sighed.

Ominous, but Shadow had a way of making things sound that.

"Great, when are we going, then?" he asked, already stretching out in preparation.

Shadow's eyes widened in surprise, "I— You seem to be ready,"

"Would hardly be my first morning run,"

Sonic watched in amusement and Shadow began to hastily shovel down the rest of his coffee beans, making him doubt why even bother keeping with the spoon, at that point. It showed impressive balance, he supposed, but come on; if you wanted speed, why keep the dainty little table manners? Maybe it was a style thing. Now that he could understand.

"I'm ready myself, as well,"

With a slight chuckle, he began to head to the door, before a thought occurred to him.

"We're not gonna have any problems with you running around like that, are we?" he asked.

"Like what?" Shadow frowned, and whoops, he actually sounded a little offended.

"Missing tail… Funny little wing stumps…"

His rival rolled his eyes, "We'll be going much to fast for anyone to notice, not that anyone will even be about where we're going,"

Yet more ominous, but what did Sonic already note about that earlier?

"What about you? No more tripping up?"

"If I didn't notice any of these changes myself before, I'll be fine now,"

"Fair enough," he grinned, "You can grab the thing then, yeah?"

Shadow smirked, "Don't tell me you're scared to handle it, faker,"

"Sure, laugh it up," Sonic scoffed, "I'm sure you'd be real thrilled to handle someone else's severed limb, then,"

"If I had to," the other hedgehog shrugged.

"Not what I asked, but whatever you say, dude. I'll just take that as a yes to carrying!"

With that, he got himself out through the door.

Shadow took him to a field of flowers, certainly out the way and pristine. There was lavender at the edges, he noted; it was hard to imagine this place hadn't been picked for a reason.

Quietly, he observed a rock, just at the edge of the field, shaded by a lone tree, and felt more than a little out of place.

If nothing else made it clear, the name and dates messily carved on made it quite clear that it was a grave marker. Who for hardly needed to be said.

Since arriving, Shadow also hadn't said a word, and Sonic wasn't sure if that was due to the location in general, or the fact that he was with him. Usually, Sonic would have a strong urge to just chatter away, but speaking up here would feel almost wrong, most certainly disrespectful.

Wanting to bury a piece of himself with Maria was poetic, in a way, if not maybe a little bit strange considering what exactly was being buried.

It was also at this point that Sonic realized that neither of them had brought up a spade. Now, he was no Knuckles, but he'd attempt to burrow himself, if he needed to, but he'd also rather wait and see what Shadow's plan was, first. He gave Shadow a few more moments of peace before asking, though.

"Hey, uh… Might be a bit late for this, but how are we going to dig? We didn't bring spades,"

At his words, Shadow snapped to attention, tearing his gaze away from the grave and breaking the trance-like state he'd been in watching it, "You mean shovels,"

Sonic squinted, "Do I? Pretty sure they're the same thing, dude,"

"To dig a large hole such as the one we need, we'd want a shovel — adept at moving large amounts of material. A spade is too precise for this," his rival explained, "Learn your garden tools, Sonic,"

He'd get all his tools from Tails anyway, but whatever. He'd let Shadow have this one, but only because it might be a little insensitive to try arguing with him, at this point.

"Yeah, well… We don't have shovels, so what's the plan?"

"I could… probably clear the earth with my chaos powers," Shadow answered.

"Is that a good idea?" gently, he asked.

Who knew how using chaos powers would impact Shadow's mutations! Certainly not Sonic, and probably not anyone at all, considering Shadow's files were apparently held hostage under lock and key by G.U.N…

"I wouldn't hit anything but the ground," Shadow assured, "I have good control,"

Oh, Chaos… He probably should have been more specific, but now he just felt bad for having brought it up.

"I wasn't doubting that," nervously, he chuckled, "I figured, since you already made all of this and whatnot… It's just, what if that accelerates the traits appearing? I could probably just dig myself, if I tried hard enough,"

"Oh, I see," the other hedgehog nodded, just slightly, "I doubt it. As far as I'm aware, my Black Arms genes only influence my chaos control, so with an attack, the two shouldn't interact much,"

"If you're sure," he gave a thumbs-up, "Do your thing, man,"

He made sure to give Shadow a good amount of room, but not before his rival managed to pass the tail over to him. Thankfully, it was still covered in the blanket, but still. Gross.

True to his word, Shadow's Chaos Spear into the ground created a clean drill into the ground. Not even the delicate flowers around the patch where Shadow had attacked were disturbed, and that lonely grave still looked as well-kept as when they'd arrived. The hole looked maybe a little too neat for a makeshift grave of sorts, though.

You could even say it looked like Shadow had spaded it rather than shoveled it.

"I may need you to loosen the soil up after all," Shadow grunted, "The shape isn't quite right,"

Just happy to have an excuse to be rid of the tail, Sonic swiftly jumped on over into the hole Shadow had made, and began to kick a bit at the walls of dirt in it. It wasn't very efficient, but it did work to shape the pit they'd dug, even if the crumbling walls of soil did get all over him in the process.

He thought it'd be funny to send Amy a photo of himself later, all mucky like this, just to see her reaction. She'd be horrified.

"This good enough?" he called back up, when he thought he'd created a roughly Shadow's tail-shaped hole.

"I think so," Shadow agreed, "Clear out, and we'll see,"

Sonic bounced up, and gave the tail a little wave as Shadow set it to fall down into the ditch. It curled a bit around the edges, but ah well — it hardly needed to be perfect.

Silently, Shadow began to cover it back up with the soil Sonic had sprayed all over the place digging. He seemed careful to only touch it with his foot, neatly avoiding getting muck in his fur or quills. Sonic, of course, had no such reservations, and began to fill the space back in much more roughly.

It worked just fine, especially once he smoothed the soil back over the top. It was obvious the ground had been disturbed from the lack of grass, but after some flowers were set down upon it, it at least looked intentional for the area.

"You want a minute before we leave or anything?" he asked.

"No, I've had plenty here before," softly, Shadow responded, "We can go,"

He said a little mental goodbye to Shadow's weird little severed tail, as well as this place in general — mainly the place, because it was a damn nice field — before setting back off for the path back to his house at a brisk jog. Shadow easily caught up, of course.

Sonic noticed his rival eyeing him up a little strangely, though.

"You good there?" he questioned.

"You should get cleaned up, when we get back," Shadow said.

He just couldn't resist a good tease, "What, the Ultimate Lifeform scared of a little dirt?"

He flicked a little bit off of his arm at Shadow, but it was only at the other's flinch, and subsequent dodge that he got the picture that he'd been poking harshly at an actual sore spot.

Oh, shit, right, Shadow had always had a bit of a thing for cleanliness, even compared to Tails who was just way too into organization, and Amy who would scrub away at spots of dirt around her place because they bothered her. It had never been discussed, but Sonic and friends had always assumed it had been a result of Shadow's upbringing; trekking dirt around would probably not have been a great idea for someone supposed to be caring for an ill little girl.

But there Sonic had gone and prodded at that right after Shadow had been to Maria's damn grave. What a fucking idea…

He winced, "Sorry, sorry, that was really out of line. I'll clean up, promise,"

"Thanks," distantly, Shadow nodded, "Would you mind terribly if I borrow your hose to rinse down my skates whilst you do that?"

"Whatever you want!" he agreed.

Shadow didn't respond again for a moment, but then, "…Don't beat yourself up over this. You were only trying to play,"

"Pretty sure it'd be stupid to have tried with just about anyone in your position," he pulled a face, "I mean, that tail is still healing, so…"

"It's fine," his rival huffed, "You said it yourself, I believe — that wound's closed up, and the regeneration had begun,"

"Ah, well, I'm still sorry,"

"You're fine," Shadow insisted.

And then he sped off, apparently having used that conversation to gain a headstart off of Sonic's regretfulness, the little cheater.

Well, headstart or not, he wasn't about to lose to Shadow!

Shadow was back in the corner of the room, when he got out of the shower. There was no book this time though, and Sonic grew a little concerned when it looked like Shadow was in pain.

He shook his quills off one more time before tentatively approaching.

"Everything good over there, dude?"

"I think I might have hit my head, at some point. There's a slight pressure building, just here," Shadow pressed a finger to the center of his forehead, just below the stripe of red that came down from his centre-most spike.

Neither of them seemed particularly inclined to mention the alternate possibility — where this was one of those twinges that signified transformations — but to be fair to Sonic, he couldn't imagine what sort of trait would manifest in the center of the forehead. He was hardly that knowledgeable on the Black Arms, but still. He decided to just trust in Shadow's judgment.

"I could get you a cold compress?"

"I don't know," Shadow frowned, "It's not painful exactly, just uncomfortable,"

It was sort of funny how nonchalant Shadow was about losing limbs and the likes, but also so fussy about minor physical inconveniences. Or maybe this was just a display of trust — Shadow was trusting him with the knowledge that something was off, and him complaining about it a little was his way of showing that. Either way, he might as well try and help.

"Eh, it won't make it worse. Just wait here," he turned, and then paused, "…Or follow me, I don't mind,"

Shadow was right behind him, because of course he was.

"Knowing you, you'd come back with just a handful of ice, unless I supervise," Shadow smirked, his brow still pinched in discomfort, but hey, who didn't have time to snark at their rival through the… apparently not pain, but that rounded off the expression nicely.

"I know how to ice wounds, Shadow," he huffed.

His rival simply shrugged, his smirk not leaving.

Sonic grabbed an ice pack out the freezer and, for once, just passed it over.

"I'm not certain that this is necessary, but thank you anyway,"

Just before Shadow could press the ice to his forehead, Sonic swore he saw something. He blinked, and Shadow already had the ice over the spot, so he had no idea what he'd seen, if he'd seen anything at all.

"Hold on," he frowned, gently peeling back Shadow's hand, "Can I just—"

"Seriously, hedgehog? You gave this to me," Shadow growled, once again jolting at the sudden contact.

"No, I know, sorry, I just thought I saw something," he explained.

And he had. There was a slight slit in Shadow's forehead now — one that he swore hadn't been there before, just a few minutes earlier. What was that even supposed to be?

"What? What is it?" Shadow demanded.

"I have absolutely no idea," Sonic stated, staring blankly at… whatever it was, "But something's there,"

Without so much as another word, ice pack largely forgotten, Shadow marched them over to the nearest mirror — the bathroom one. Unsurprisingly, he didn't seem happy at the development, but he didn't seem to be able to determine what it was either.

Not until it split open, revealing what it had been causing Shadow's twinges.

Shadow blinked at it — with three eyelids — and stared.

"I fucking knew it," he hissed, recoiling away.

"Huh?" dumbstruck, Sonic asked, "Knew what?"

"Black Doom had three eyes," curtly Shadow answered, "This is… Argh… Not what I needed,"

"You could have said…" he muttered, "Alright, so… We… don't need the compress anymore?"

"I… suppose not," clearly strained, Shadow gritted out.

Sonic took immediate note of that. Why only 'suppose not' …? Hadn't Shadow not even wanted the damn thing in the first place?

He looked angry, and ah… tense? And not in just a usual grouchy Shadow, hunched shoulders, scowling expression. This was shaken, and packed with genuine concern. Shadow didn't get like this easily. He clearly liked to keep his guard up, even when that just meant keeping a neutral — or usually in his case, grim — expression on.

Maybe his expressions were just reading differently with the literal fucking third eye that was now also allowed to emote, but Sonic didn't think that was the case.

"Do you… need a minute?" quietly, he offered.

"I don't know," sharply, Shadow forced out, hsi fingers gripping tightly onto the edge of the sink. Sonic began to get a little worried for the survival of said sink.

Gently, he tried to pry Shadow's hands away, "Hey, dude, you with me still? Think we can take this somewhere else for a bit?"

"I don't need you to get all buddy-buddy with me now," harshly, the other hedgehog bristled, eyes darting over to Sonic in a snappish motion.

But his breathing was notably getting quick and shallow, pace of it all over the place.

"Yeah, yeah. C'mon, bud," fondly, he sighed, leading Shadow back into the lounge as best he could — he figured it was most important to get Shadow out of the bathroom, out of sight of the mirror.

The couch would probably be the best place to set them both down. Kinda gross if he stopped to think about what had spent the night on it previously, but it wasn't visibly messy, and neither of them needed to think about it…

"I told you—" slowly, but still with that angry and hurt edge, Shadow began, but Sonic cut him off.

"And I didn't listen," he grinned, "I'm not always perfect at that!"

"…What are you trying to—" Shadow cringed and stopped himself, burying his face in his hands.

"Hey, you breathing good?" he asked, "Breathe with me, if you need,"

He made a big show of steady breathing. No idea if it actually helped at all, but he figured it at least wasn't hurting.

"So, uh… Bad situation, obviously," he acknowledged, "But what's going on? Why's this all got you worse-for-wear?"

Obviously the general situation was probably weighing on him, but he hadn't been close to as upset that morning.

"It's…" after a solemn moment, Shadow began, voice a little muffled from the way his face was pressed up in his hands, "I don't feel like myself. Even if it's not all at once, it could someday be. And even if it's never all at once, if I'm replaced bit by bit, how long until I stop trusting that I'm me?"

"You've seemed like Shadow all the way through to me,"

"Don't…" harshly, hissed, "I know what you're trying Sonic, and I don't want to hear it,"

"Huh?" genuinely clueless, Sonic replied.

"You want to make me feel better. Just… Stop," he sighed, "I've spent time enough questioning who I am, and I don't need you to give me some spiel about already being who I need to be, or that I can just figure this out as I go. I know who I am. I know who I want to be. I just don't feel like that person, not with all of… this going on,"

"Listen, Shads, I know what it's like on the other end of… this," he explained, "You can't really make the feeling go away, I guess, but… You're not as different on the outside as you feel on the inside — even if you maybe look it a bit,"

He winced; was that a bit harsh? Shadow never even looked that different? Not like how it had been with the werehog, where people didn't even recognize Sonic, usually.

"I appreciate you trying, but I don't think you do… quite understand," Shadow bristled.

Well, guess what? He did! And he wore his scars loud and proud now as much as ever.

"I mean, I haven't started growing alien features before, sure, but I've done my share of transformations," he contended, placing what he hoped was a comforting Shadow's back, and gently massaging between his spines, careful to avoid the beginnings of those wings.

"Going super doesn't—"

"Not super, dude," exasperated, Sonic said, "You remember when the planet split apart?"

Shadow didn't look up still, but Sonic had a feeling he was watching him, nonetheless.

"How could I forget? Don't tell me that was your fault,"

"Hey!" he complained, but he was grinning at the insult anyway, "Not exactly. It's a long story, but… I wasn't in great shape after that. Absorbed some strange energy, and boom, nightly transformations,"

Ah, Shadow was peaking through his fingers. Sonic could see slight glimpses of that characteristic red.

"Into… what?" quietly, Shadow pressed.

"You'll laugh if I share the name," he shrugged, "But it was… a time. There were a lot of monsters around at that point — you probably noticed. I looked so… not like me, so much rougher than usual, I thought people might think I was one of them, but…" he shut his eyes, reminiscing, "That was a little silly, in hindsight. My body was changing, but I wasn't, and I know who I am,"

"You make it sound so simple," the other hedgehog huffed bitterly.

"It can be!" he chuckled, "No need to overthink it,"

"Perhaps that's easy for you…"

"Shadow," he chuckled, "I know you… struggle with this kind of stuff more than I do, but you gotta trust me here. You never stopped being you, promise,"

Wordlessly, Shadow rotated his head, so that all three eyes were fixated on Sonic, staring right up at him, through him, straight into his core. He felt like he was under a microscope, being studied in such strange detail. But he wouldn't have been having this conversation if he wasn't happy to put himself out there to Shadow, all of him out there, for the Shadow's sake.

"You're… a remarkable being, Sonic,"

That could have been a compliment, could have been an insult. Who cared? Shadow didn't sound as hung up anymore, and that was what mattered.

"Nah," he shrugged, "Just a regular type of guy, really. I just… sometimes have some useful stuff to say," Or do. Mostly the action-y stuff; words weren't always really his forte.

"Hmph," Shadow rolled his eyes — that looked slightly disconcerting with three eyes at once, but Sonic managed to not comment on it, "…I didn't know about that other transformation you talked about. I'm sorry you had to deal with that, and… I'm sorry I assumed you couldn't have understood,"

"It's all cool," he replied, "Dunno how you would have known,"

"Ah, thank you for sharing then, I suppose," and then, after a slightly awkward beat because Sonic wasn't at all sure how to respond, Shadow reeled back, clutching his head again," Ah, shit…"

"What? What's going on?"

Surely not another transformation, but…

"Nothing new," Shadow clarified, clearly catching what he was guessing, "It's just… disconcerting to have your vision suddenly altered like this. It's giving me a headache,"

"Can you keep just the new eye shut?" he suggested.

"Maybe. But it's easier said than done," gruffly, his rival admitted.

Sonic thought he did pretty well to not laugh at least a little at Shadow's frog blinking, one eye, then the other pair, but never quite the correct one on its own. Maybe it wasn't even possible — like how you couldn't move your pinkie finger without moving your ring finger as well. Or maybe…

"Uncoordinated much?" he snarked.

"I don't want to hear it from you," growled Shadow, "If it were that easy, I'd have figured it out already,"

"Alright, how about this, then — I still have a favor to cash in with Amy, so I'll see if I can grab something off of her to help," Sonic narrated, "I'll text Rouge an update too. Screens probably won't make anything feel any better for you. You just… go back to being face down, I guess, see if that helps. And then if all else fails, we can go through my cupboards and see if I actually have anything strong enough to help with the pain,"

"Could you… maybe slow that down a little?" Shadow winced.

Oh, yikes. It was pretty bad, huh.

"Me, grabbing Amy's help. You, staying right here, face down," he summarized, "I'll deal with Rouge too, we can think about maybe finding painkillers later,"

"Great," the other hedgehog groaned, doing as asked and flopping down face-first onto the couch.

Well, as long as Sonic didn't come back to a severed eyeball…

He left to go make a call to Amy in peace.

She took a couple of rings to pick up, but who didn't? She couldn't have been expecting his call…

"Sonic?" clearly surprised, Amy greeted, "Is everything okay?"

Most days there would be a joke to make there about him being perfectly capable of calling for fun, but c'mon — this was a tad more serious.

"You still up to do me and Shadow a favor?"

"Of course! But what's going on? Is he okay?" worriedly, she responded.

"Okay-ish," he pulled a face, "Don't worry about it too much. Do you have any eye masks, though? Like, the sleep ones?"

"Insomnia?" she sighed.

"Not really. It's… a long story, and probably one he'd rather tell you himself. If you have one though, it'd be a real life saver,"

"I've got it covered!" she assured, "I'll be round in a few minutes?"

"Sounds great, thanks, Amy. Seriously, I probably owe you big time for this. I'm not pulling you out of anything, am I?"

"No, it's fine, really — I'm not busy. And what's a small favor for a friend?"

"Haha, you're the best," he grinned.

"Alright, I'll be there soon," Amy promised, before hanging up.

Alright, that was the easy bit dealt with, then. Rouge would be more likely to freak out, but also more likely to be otherwise occupied, so he thought it best to shoot her a text instead.

batgirl

 

yo rouge update w/ shadow 11:31

couple of things today :/ 11:31

looked like he nearly started growing wings overnight but that gave up part way through 11:32

So just a couple of stubs 11:32

Then he got a 3rd eye??? 11:34

said he was kinda expecting it or something but i also think it kinda freaked him out 11:35

gonna see what we can do ourselves I guess 11:35  

 

Really sorry blue I can't really talk rn 11:37

If this is about shadow I'll catch up later. Still working on getting his files 11:37

 

Good luck 11:38

Well, he'd done his job.

Hastily, he rushed back to the lounge. Shadow was still exactly where he'd left him, not that he'd been expecting otherwise. Shadow was stubborn and at times reckless, but he was no idiot. And this just went to show he at least trusted Sonic enough to give him time to sort things out.

"Amy'll be over in a bit, and Rouge has been updated," he announced.

"Did Rouge say much?"

"Er, not exactly… I think I might have caught her in the middle of her mission, haha," sheepishly, he replied, "Said she was still in the process of stealing your files,"

"She better not have been literally mid-mission," Shadow sighed, "And what did you ask Rose for?"

Sonic winked, even though he knew Shadow couldn't see it, "You'll find out soon,"

"You're infuriating," his rival mumbled.

"Uh-huh. And what does that make you?"

"You're making my headache worse," Shadow shut him down.

Even after Amy arrived, they'd still probably need something a little more, huh. And with Rouge still busy… Well, there was another option, if Shadow was up for it.

"Okay, okay, just one more thing," he insisted, "How would you feel about going to Tails's after this? He doesn't have your files or anything, but he's a pretty smart kid, and he wouldn't report this to G.U.N. or anything,"

"Hm, that's not a terrible idea," Shadow said, "I was curious as to when you would first suggest a meeting with him,"

"If you were thinking about it, why didn't you suggest it as an idea?" exasperated, Sonic asked.

The other hedgehog shrugged, but it wasn't as nonchalant as he's maybe hoped — possibly as a consequence of his face still being against the couch, possibly otherwise, "I didn't think I'd run into enough trouble to justify not just waiting for Rouge,"

"Well—"

There was a knock at the door.

Sonic actually laughed, "I swear, she always does this to us… Just— Hold that thought-!"

Amy had a key to this place, so she could let herself in if she so desired. She still knocked though, because she was all polite and courteous like that. Maybe she was trying to teach Sonic a lesson. (Sonic who still had something of a habit of rolling in through people's open windows rather than just using their doors, like anyone else might.)

He let her in, even if she didn't really need his help, and sighed in relief when he saw what she'd brought.

"This was what you wanted, right?" Amy inquired, holding up a sleep mask. It was a little bit lacy around the edges, but it was red, so Shadow probably wouldn't object to it too much.

"Perfect, Amy!" he grinned, "Thanks a ton!"

She returned his expression with a smile of her own, clearly relieved, "Oh, thank goodness. Can I step in for a bit, or would you prefer me out the way?"

Ever the attentive friend… Man, where would they be without Amy right now…

"Uh…" he paused, and turned to behind him, "Hey, Shadow? Any opinion?"

"Just stop yelling, and I don't care," Shadow hissed back, "Invite her in if you'd like,"

He winked at Amy, "Make yourself at home,"

They wandered into the lounge together, and, bless her, my didn't so much as bat an eyelid at Shadow's odd positions — or at his exposed little wing stumps, if she even noticed them.

"I brought some tea and cake too," she explained, in lieu of any further greeting, "I know you said you didn't need anything else, but I thought at least one of you might enjoy it,"

"Cake?" Shadow, despite all of his reservations and complaints, actually stuck his head up at that one, "Is it chocolate?"

Amy, to her credit, wore her surprise at Shadow's recent… face modifications very subtly; Sonic only caught them because he'd known her long enough to get a decent reading on her. She was probably in the clear in terms of his rival noticing.

"Coffee," she responded, carefully, "I wanted to bring strawberry shortcake, but somebody," she elbowed Sonic, "Doesn't like it. Is that okay?"

"I still think the beans are better on their own, but… I do still enjoy it," Shadow mused.

The basket Amy had brought with her, presumably containing tea and cake, was set down on the small table along the wall.

"It probably has beans on the top anyway," Sonic huffed, rolling his eyes, "And what happened to getting a headache from this changed vision?"

"I thought it would be impolite to not look at your guest whilst asking her a question,"

"You don't care about that stuff with me," he complained.

"I didn't think you'd care," flatly, Shadow replied.

Amy smiled apologetically, "Oh, I don't mind either, Shadow. Though, uhm… If you don't mind me asking, what exactly is going on?"

"You're fine. It's—"

"Can we hold off explanations for just a second?" Sonic cut in, "I got something for you, Shads,"

"What you asked her for, I presume?"

"You got it!" he nodded, presenting the eye mask with a flourish.

Shadow eyed it dubiously, and with three eyes, that was one-point-five times the normal dubiousness — so pretty damn dubious. "I don't…"

"It's a sleep mask? One of those thingies you wear to block out the light at night to help you sleep? I thought since you were having trouble keeping just that one eye shut, you could just block it out instead, and then blam, your vision would be basically normal again," he expounded.

"That… could work," Shadow conceded, taking the mask and trying it on.

An unfortunate quirk in its design was that it was really shaped for someone with two eyes, so the edges of the bottom curves on it looped down to cover Shadow's two regular eyes a little bit, too. It didn't seem awfully comfortable. Shadow grimaced.

"Try it upside-down," Amy suggested.

It looked a little strange by that, and definitely something Sonic would laugh at it if it wouldn't be: one, a bit insensitive, and two, an atrocious idea for right in front of Amy.

"It's blocked out my vision successfully," Shadow remarked.

"And your headache?"

"Not going to have just vanished," Shadow sighed, "But it's fine. Forget about it,"

"Offer's still up to see if I have any painkillers strong enough for you," casually, he stated.

"Don't bother. I'd rather we just headed to Tails's sooner rather than later…"

"You're going out?" Amy questioned.

"Eventually," hurriedly, Sonic clarified, "But come one! At least give things a second to settle down! Don't you want some cake first or anything?"

"You said you'd give me an explanation as well," Amy added.

Huh, clever trick. Sonic was pretty sure Amy wouldn't actually force Shadow to explain anything, but she seemed to have caught his drift about trying to help Shadow's physical pain a little first, before they shot off to deal with the overall issue. He had to hand it to her — it was a solid way of giving Shadow a reason to stick around for a bit. Knowing him, he'd feel at least a little obligated to oblige her.

"Fine," grimly, Shadow agreed, "Did you bring us a knife as well, or need we go and fetch one?"

Sonic zipped in and out of the room, having grabbed his kitchen knife before Amy even had a chance to explain.

"I'll just get cutting, yeah?"

"That was wholly unnecessary," Shadow grunted. His expression, that slight smile, betrayed him, however.

"It's fine," Amy sighed, "I did bring one, but I probably never would have seen it again if I let Sonic use it and then keep it,"

"Rude," he huffed, making sure to channel all of his pettiness and cut Amy's slice of cake just a sliver smaller than his and Shadow's.

He passed the plates out, and at the very least, Shadow seemed to find the cake agreeable. (Or maybe that was just the coffee beans Sonic had generously donated off of the top of his own slice.)

"You wanted an explanation, Rose?" Shadow hummed, in between bites, "To keep a long story short, I have been having trouble with Black Arms traits manifesting. My teammates are out on a mission, so I've been left under Sonic's supervision,"

"Black Arms…" Amy mumbled, "Ah, the aliens? I see! Or… I understand your side, anyway. Not sure why anyone would trust Sonic to supervise,"

Joke or not, he was just a tad offended by that sentiment.

"Amy, I'm not completely hopeless. Just because I prefer crashing with someone else, doesn't mean I don't know how to take care of myself, or others, for that—"

"I trust him," Shadow inputted, "I had a choice of who to go with, and I picked Sonic. I would have prefered to stay on my own, but since that was deemed 'unsafe' for me, I decided Sonic was the next best option,"

"Wait, seriously?"

For whatever reason, he'd got the impression that Rouge had scoped him out as the best target to stick Shadow with, but huh. Maybe this did make more sense.

"You provide… adequate company, and you don't push my boundaries," Shadow summarized.

Sonic was oddly touched.

But Amy was grinning a little too much, and he had a feeling he knew where this was going.

"That's so nice of you to say, Shadow!" she preened, "I'm sure Sonic feels the same way back!"

"Uh," eloquently, he managed, cringing all the way through, "I mean, sure, I like hanging with you, Shads,"

Shadow nodded, serious as ever, but he looked a little… bashful, maybe? Go figure…

Sonic gave Amy a look anyway, because even if she was just trying to help push them along in the right direction, c'mon. He didn't really want her push. He knew how to handle Shadow.

"Well… I'm glad this is all working out best it really can, then," backing off slightly, Amy said.

"Best as it can indeed…" Shadow sighed, "I'll be glad when it all stops happening,"

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again — we'll figure things out. Worst case, maybe you just figure out some way to control the transformations!"

"I might have to consider that as is," he noted, "We spoke about how the wings might get rid of themselves earlier, but what about the eye? I can't imagine that being any kind of pretty sight,"

Sonic tried to remain nonchalant, "As long as there's not eyeballs spilling out on my couch?"

Amy grimaced, "Sonic…"

"Sorry, yeah, that was a bit… visceral. Maybe Tails will have a better idea?"

That preferably wasn't just Shadow… forcibly removing it…

"He might at least have some insight as to what my options are," Shadow agreed.

"How's that headache, then?"

Shadow hesitated, "Still present, but… better,"

"What if we just got you a glass of water and then headed off?" he suggested, "I could just carry you, if needed,"

"Why would I need to be carried?" irritably, Shadow huffed.

"I don't know," he shrugged, "Maybe your depth perception's gone screwy from all these vision changes,"

"I'm sure he could manage a run to Tails's Lab just fine," Amy argued, "My vision's never been great, but I've always managed to move around fine,"

The less said about Amy's vision the better, at times. Though, to be fair, he was pretty sure it was colors that were a bigger problem for her, rather than general sight or, as in this case, depth perception.

"So I'll be fine," Shadow nodded.

"Was just offerin'," he dismissed.

And maybe it would have felt a little cool to carry Shadow there, so maybe he'd offered because he'd wanted to, but nevermind that. Sonic was always up to just race Shadow there instead. Unless…

"You coming too, Ames?"

She shook her head, "I've got cake stock to replenish. Let me know if you need anything else, of course, but I think I'll leave you two to it,"

"Thank you for your assistance so far," politely, Shadow acknowledged, "And for your cake, too,"

"Oh, you're most welcome!" Amy giggled.

"We're off, then?" he affirmed, but didn't actually wait for a response, "Cool,"

Sonic offered Shadow a hand up, but the other batted it away. He shrugged and followed both other hedgehogs to the door.

"Thanks for having me, Sonic," Amy said, before he or Shadow could blast off.

"Oh, yeah, no worries," he winked, "You know you're always welcome,"

When he was there, typically, but it wasn't like he'd have a problem with her dropping by when he wasn't, if she needed to.

"You know the way?" Sonic asked Shadow.

"Well enough," Shadow nodded, "I'll be able to figure it out beside you, anyway,"

Whilst Shadow didn't have quite the same nose for directions as he did, he was decent enough at them. That'd serve them just fine, in this instance.

Sonic took off first, without warning, just on the off chance that Shadow needed a little reminding of initial direction, and also maybe because it was fun to pull one over on his rival.

Chapter Text

"Tails, you home?" he called out, wrapping his fist on the front door grandiously.

"Sure, Sonic, in the worksop!" his brother answered back.

Casually, Sonic swung around to the side door of the workshop, making sure Shadow was still following him along the way.

"Hey, bud!" he greeted cheerily, "You busy?"

"Not bored, if that's what you mean," Tails chuckled, turning around to face him, "But also not— Oh, hey, Shadow,"

He pulled Shadow a little further into the workshop.

"Got a chance to give us a hand?"

"Your aid would be much appreciated, Miles,"

Tails gave him a look as if to say 'Is this guy for real?'. Yes, unfortunately Shadow was for real. Still formal to a fault about this sort of thing.

"Ahah, I have time," sheepishly, he answered, "And you can just call me Tails!"

Sonic elbowed Shadow as he walked past, and whispered to him, "Don't overthink this one either, dude. That's just what he wants to be called — not a secret friend nickname,"

"So, what's going on?" Tails continued.

He was clearly looking at the eye mask Shadow had on, and Sonic had no doubt that he was already putting together some idea of what could be going on.

"Shads?" Sonic motioned.

With a sigh, Shadow removed his mask to explain, "My body seems to be reacting strangely to an accident last week. Sonic told me that you may be able to assist me in determining what is going on so that I may stop it,"

"Woah," Tails let out, "That's incredible… Ah! I mean… Scientifically, anyway — not for you! I'll help! Take a seat,"

As per usual, Sonic perched himself on the end on the workbench. He then snorted at the disappointed look Shadow gave him for this. After a moment, his rival decided to just lean against the wall instead. In his defense… Yeah, Tails didn't actually have any spare chairs. He tended to just expect Sonic to take his table seat, anyway.

"To get you up to speed, Shadow's been with me for the past couple of days, and he's been gaining and losing a bunch of Black Arms traits, hence the eyes and, uh, you can't see the other one right now, so don't worry about it. They usually go away on their own, and he says it started happening after he was shot," he explained, "That all sound right to you, Shadow?"

"Yes," curtly, Shadow nodded, "And it seems to be getting worse, so I thought it prudent to attempt to deal with the situation now,"

"Huh… That does sound strange," Tails mused, "Black Arms traits? Maybe it's… Do you have the Project Shadow files on hand?"

"No, because G.U.N. letting their employees keep the files about their own damn creations would be way too much," bitterly, Sonic scoffed.

"I'm classed as a weapon, so they keep my files," Shadow clarified, "Rouge is working on obtaining them, though,"

Chaos, he'd say it again — fuck G.U.N. Shadow wouldn't be still dealing with all of this crap if they could just treat him like an actual person. What was next? Him finding out they held Rouge's birth certificate hostage too?

"Right, so keeping clear of them…" Tails nodded, "Understood. I should still be able to help! It's just… I might need to run a few tests, especially without he files,"

Sonic watched Shadow hesitate.

…He didn't like labs and doctors that much, did he?

"What kind?" Sonic questioned.

"Uhm… Probably some rudimentary scans? Maybe some blood samples too, but since I don't know what Shadow's bloodwork is supposed to look like, I don't know how much that would help,"

"Alright, might as well get it over with," Shadow sighed.

Sonic shot him a concerned look, but Shadow ignored him in favor of placing his mask back on. Alright, then.

"You need a sec to set that all up then, bud? I wanna have a quick word with Shadow first, anyway,"

"Oh, yeah, probably. You can wait in the side room, if you'd like?" Tails answered, clearly picking up on his concerns.

"Sonic—" Shadow hissed, but Sonic didn't give him a proper chance to complain, dragging them both off into the hallway connecting the workshop and Tails's main house.

"You don't like scans and tests and stuff, right?" he affirmed.

"It's no issue," Shadow argued, "And I need to have those scans done,"

"Sure, but… I just wanted to offer you a chance to cool off first,"

People had to do things they didn't want to do — of course they did. That was just a fact of life. But that didn’t mean they weren't allowed to be afraid first, either. Sonic knew most of his friends' main fears, and he wasn't about to judge any of them for it. (Not usually, anyway. Sometimes a good bit of light ribbing could be fun, where appropriate. It would clearly not be appropriate here.)

"Why?" his rival frowned, "I'm fine. I just want this over with,"

"Because I know it can be horrible to do all this crap you don't want to!" he explained, "It's like… Hey, I hate water, right? That's fine 'nd all until I have to deal with it, and I will deal with it, but I don't think there's usually much harm giving myself room to breathe beforehand,"

"That's hardly the same thing…" Shadow huffed, "You scream at people's fucking pool parties,"

Sonic rolled his eyes, "Dude, that was one time, and only because someone shoved me in!"

He still hadn't figured out who exactly it was, but when he did…

"Don't look at me like that. It wasn't me,"

"Painful memories," he deadpanned, "But anyway! Just wanted to make sure that you knew that when we're back through there, no one'll mind if you need to take things slow. Tails won't care, and heck, as much as I hate it, even I have to sometimes, right?"

"Extremely reluctantly, as I recall," Shadow snarked.

"Oh, haha, sure. Not really in my nature, but… If it gets me through things… No shame in it, dude. That's all I'm saying,"

"I understand," Shadow conceded, "But I will be fine. I doubt Mile— Er, Tails's tests will trigger me that much, and I suspect that I fear what's happening to me already more than any of them, anyway,"

Sonic winked, "I'll hold your hand through it, if you want,"

"Shut the fuck up," Shadow ordered.

"I mean, that wasn't a no…"

Shadow grabbed his hand right then and there, and damn, if anyone could make that seem intimidating… Shadow seemed to already be threatening to cut his circulation off at his wrist!

He powered on through that and dragged them both back into the workshop.

"So… What's this going to entail?"

Tails waved a few rods about, and then finally a helmet, "I'm going to start with a few basic checks — chaos signature and all that, and then I think I'll try see if there's any correlation with his brain activity,"

Sonic wasn't going to even pretend to understand why any of that might work, but if Tails thought it would, he was ready to think the same thing.

"I don't think it's brain activity. I've had a roughly equal number of transformations during the day as when I'm asleep,"

"Maybe, but it might still be worth checking. If we get to that point with no answers, anyway," his brother expounded.

"I see," Shadow nodded, "What are we starting with?"

"Just stand over there in the center of the room, and let me just…" Tails grabbed the first rod and walked over with the two of them.

Somehow, Shadow squeezed Sonic's hand yet tighter.

"Where was your injury?" Tails asked.

"Right arm," said Shadow.

Tails began to wave the rod around that area. Quite quickly, it began to beep. Sonic was on the left side of Shadow, so whatever it was, he was pretty confident he wasn't affecting it. But just in case…

"And… What's that thing?" he questioned.

"Metal detector," Tails sighed, "Shadow… Did you ever get the bullet taken out?"

Shadow blinked, "No…? It healed too quickly for me to find if there was an exit wound, but I thought I remembered it going all the way through,"

Gaia almighty, what? Was that kind of thing normal for Shadow? The amount of crazy things he'd heard about this guy and his healing factor these past couple of days made him think maybe he really was some kind of ultimate lifeform…

"Well, unless you have some other piece of metal in your right arm that I should know about, I think the bullet's actually still in there,"

"Would that be capable of causing something like this?" Shadow frowned, "I've… dealt with bullets before. They've never caused anything like this, though,"

"Not on its own, but if something else was going on, maybe the traits manifesting are some strange way of your body trying to heal something that it just can't? It can't get rid of the bullet, but it needs to do something,"

"Well, since it's apparently capable of autotomy, I don't see why it doesn't just amputate the whole damn arm," Shadow muttered.

"Dude," Sonic cringed, "I don't think watching your arm fall off would be any less traumatic,"

"It's too late for it to matter now, anyway..." Shadow sulked, "I suppose we'll need to remove the bullet, then?"

"Probably, but I'd like to figure out if anything specific's causing that increased healing factor you mentioned, first," said Tails, "Was anything else strange before your injury?"

"I don't think so. I felt normal up until the first transformation,"

Did that include after the bullet wound, or…? Nevermind, maybe Sonic didn't actually want to know the answer to that one.

"Any other injuries in the lead up to that week?"

"A close call, perhaps. But I was not actually injured — Rouge checked afterwards," Shadow paused, "Unless it wasn't me who was— Mi— Tails, check my right inhibitor ring-!"

"Wrist or ankle?" Tails shot back.

Shadow’s expression turned flat, "Right wrist… Of course…"

"Do you mind if I…?"

"If it's damaged, I doubt removing it will change much of anything anyway,"

Tails clipped the ring off, under Shadow's guidance, and took it over to his desk.

Just like that…? Chaos, was this better or worse than the casual glove removal of the other day? He'd held one of Shadow's inhibitors in his own hand before — admittedly under much worse circumstances, and without the hedgehog himself present, but he'd done it — and yet this still felt weirdly intimate. He tried not to stare at Shadow's wrist, looking strangely empty now.

"Feels weird seeing you missing one of those," he murmured.

"It's not most comfortable for me. But like I said, if it's damaged, removing it won't matter. And, much as I loathe to admit it, damage could explain a few things — namely that exhaustion that I had pinned down on regeneration," noted Shadow.

"Actually, yeah," Sonic nodded, "Weren't you all sleepy that night before any regen started?"

"Before that, even. I actually fell asleep on that first night with you. That's not normal for me,"

"Huh. I kinda assumed that was just because of me,"

"What?" Shadow tilted his head to the side.

"I dunno. I thought maybe you just managed it 'cause I asked," he explained, "Huh. Maybe that does sound kind of stupid,"

"Hardly anything new for you," Shadow smirked, "Though… I only sleep around people I feel safe with, so I suppose you aren't entirely misguided,"

Wait a second…

"You feel safe around me-?" he paused, "We fight like, all the time. What's up with that?"

"Not like you'd actually manage to do a number on me," his rival scoffed, "And weren't you the one saying how you wanted me to trust you?"

"No, yeah, for sure, dude!" he fumbled, "I just… Huh. I feel safe around you too, I guess,"

Lightly, he coughed, and prayed to Gaia, Chip, whoever, that Tails would hurry up a little.

"…Ah, that's—"

"Got it!" Tails announced, "I've found the issue!"

"Can you fix it?" urgently, Shadow shot back.

"Maybe? You said Rouge is getting your files though, right? Those should detail about your inhibitors too, and to be honest, I'd feel a little safer working from actual blueprints than a busted single one," his brother continued, "I possibly could do it myself, but I'd recommend waiting for the files,"

"What if you had a second ring?" Sonic suggested.

"I could… probably do it from that, yeah. Why?" cautiously, Tails affirmed.

"Well, Shadow, seems to have a good enough handle on his powers that aren't strange transformations, and if tiredness is the only drawback, I think he could handle it! So Tails, you take a second ring, and I'll make sure nothing happens to him in the meantime!"

"What?" Shadow barked out, "That would be foolishly dangerous, for both of us!"

"I mean, it's your choice, but it's either wait who knows how long for the files, or take the risk now. Shouldn't it be fine if you just don't try to use your powers?"

He didn't have a perfect knowledge of Shadow's abilities, of course, but as far as he understood, the inhibitors just restricted the amount of power available to him, so as to not tire him out. So if he just didn't attempt to use the power, would there still be an issue?

"It's not that simple," the other hedgehog growled, "My control is lessened when I have more power available, and if I accidentally overshoot and use too much, it'll be… painful,"

Sonic offered him a smile, "I think your control is better than you think. I mean, your chaos powers haven't been what's acting up this week, right? But if it'll be painful…" he backed off, "You're probably right. I don't know what it's like for you, since only you know best. Your choice, man,"

"It's not… a horrible idea, upon second consideration," Shadow conceded.

“Huh? Seriously?"

"I'm already one inhibitor down as is. It… could be advantageous to limit the amount of time I'm missing any,"

"Does losing a second make that big of a difference to losing just the first?" he asked.

Shadow made a face, "I'm not certain. I tend to remove them in pairs as is, but if the jump is as big as it could be, then yes. And in that case, I'll likely need your help, Sonic,"

"Not sure what I can do, but sounds good to me! Just lemme know what you need!"

"You're able to channel chaos energy too, right? I've seen you do it before. Perhaps you could aid me in reducing my natural levels,"

"Like sharing emerald power?" he hummed, "I could probably do that,"

It wasn't something they'd attempted before, but when had Sonic ever let anything like that stop him before? If Shadow thought it could work, then it could probably work, and was worth a shot.

"So…To clarify, am I using the second ring, or waiting for the files?" Tails inquired.

"The second inhibitor," Shadow nodded, striding over to the workbench — bringing Sonic with him on account of their hands still being locked together, "If you have time to work quickly now, then that's what we need,"

"I can do that!" Tails assured, "I'll have the first one repaired as soon as possible!"

"Alright. Sonic, don't move,"

A tall order, but Sonic complied anyway.

Then, for the second time that day, Shadow unclipped one of his inhibitor rings, the second of his wrist ones, this time, and passed it over to Tails. Sonic hadn't been sure what to expect, but he could feel the power increase in Shadow as soon as that thing was off. The ring was hardly out of Shadow's grip, but he was already feeling the effects, and he hadn't even been the one to be wearing the damn thing.

It was electric. Power surging in through the hand he had around Shadow's, racing up through him, and making his quills stand on end. He was already often fidgety and hyperactive, but this added this agitation — this need to move like he only typically experienced on really bad days. It was a charge, a boost, a connection. It was no Super Sonic, but it was still quite obviously an upgrade.

"Woah," he muttered, "You can just do this whenever?"

He looked up at Shadow, realizing at that point that his rival had had his eyes clamped shut. They only opened to glance back at Sonic.

"It's working? You can feel that?"

"As sure as I can feel any powerup!" he laughed, "You doing okay with it all?"

"I'm going to attempt to scale it back now," Shadow answered, "Before it takes too much strain on either of us. Let me know if that works, too,"

It felt like the sparks stopped flying. What had been a howling force, the kind of raging impulse that felt most akin to when he'd been a werehog pumped full of Dark Gaia's energy, diminished to a more distant thrum. Oh, he could still feel who he was connected to, but it wasn't as overwhelming.

"That definitely did something," he noted.

He caught Tails relax a little at his words, before turning around.

"Sonic, if everything's working alright, would you mind figuring this out somewhere else so I can have some quiet to work in?"

"Of course," swiftly, Shadow nodded, "Come on, faker,"

"Gimme a call when you're done, bud-!" Sonic grinned.

Shadow marched them both out the door before he could catch a reply, but he was fairly certain Tails had given an affirming sound of some kind.

Outside, he kind of desperately wanted to run, but he also knew he couldn't just leave Shadow behind. He took to tapping his foot about, as if in impatience, as soon as they came to a standstill, instead. Well, that and chatting excessively.

"So… You feeling okay so far?" he asked.

"Fine," Shadow shrugged, "I think you taking some of my supply actually does help,"

"Is this all like… naturally generated chaos, then? Could you… I don't know, do chaos control without an emerald like this?" he theorized.

"Not as far as I know. And now would be a terrible time to test,"

"Okay," Sonic nodded, "Then what can you do? More powerful attacks? More speed? Forcefields? This feels so—"

"You're speaking faster than normal," with a note of amusement, his rival stated.

"Huh? Am I? Hadn't even noticed,"

"You speak fast, but not this fast, typically," Shadow chuckled, "Excess energy, I take it? You're very chatty, too,"

"Feels like my brain's going even faster than normal, too. Gotta keep up with it and fill the silence, y'know?"

"Interesting. You're not like this as Super Sonic,"

He rolled his eyes, "I think I feel more controlled as Super Sonic. That's like a continuous elevation — just a full on transformation. Probably helps that I'm only in that form when I need to be, too," he explained, "But this is like bursts, sparks-! But my goal is to just keep us out the way,"

"Let's do something, then," Shadow suggested.

"Aren't we supposed to be conserving your energy?" wryly, he grinned.

"Not a fight," the other hedgehog quickly clarified, "I doubt that would end well,"

"Not like we could race either, if we need to maintain contact,"

"Three-legged,"

"Huh? Are you serious? How would that even—" taken aback by the suggestion, he stumbled about his words, "You skate, dude! And I run! How would that mesh?"

"We could figure that out, I'm sure,"

"Is it even a race at that point?" Sonic huffed.

"Perhaps more of a challenge," Shadow conceded, "So unless you're saying you're not up to it…"

He was dying to get moving.

"Oh, you're so on," he cackled, "We're doing this!"

"You got anything to tie our legs together with?" his rival grunted.

He fished around in his quills.

"Not on me, no, but Tails has some rope in his front room, I think, and I have the keys-!"

Shadow nodded appreciatively, and let him guide them into said front room to retrieve said rope. It was right where Sonic thought it would be. Excellent.

He wasted no time in tying their legs firmly together — his right to Shadow's left — once they were back outside.

"Want a countdown?" he laughed.

"Like I need one to keep up with you," cockily, Shadow smirked.

He yanked their conjoined leg forward with no extra warning. To his credit, Shadow managed to match his stride partway through, but it was messy. Only really one place to go from there!

Picking up speed was more difficult like this, but it was thrilling. Sharing Shadow's power like he was, he felt more in sync with his rival than usual, and to their credit, they could already be fairly in sync when they got into the heat of a good fight or race.

But like this, he could just intuitively feel changes in Shadow's rhythm. Chaos signatures were often used to distinguish people and their health, and maybe that was helping them here. With the chaos energy flowing between them, Sonic could determine Shadow's next move almost like he had access to his rival's thoughts.

Or maybe he just knew him that well. Who could say.

He nearly tripped, at one point. Or maybe it had been Shadow; it was difficult to say, really. But they caught each other. They kept going.

They ran until they reached a cliff face, the midday sun blaring down at the. There was no gold around Shadow's wrists for the light to glint off of, but Sonic thought he caught it in the other hedgehog's eyes, instead — just the two, as the eye mask had miraculously survived the trip.

He was more worn out than he expected to be. It was probably a side effect of the chaos sharing that was going on. Shadow had mentioned that removing his inhibitor rings tired him more easily. So he plopped himself down on the edge of the cliff, leaving Shadow with little choice but to copy him.

"Looks like you may have to learn to control the transformations yourself after all, huh," he hummed, "Pretty sure you'll do fine. That was some pretty decent control back there if you ask me,"

Shadow didn't reply for the moment, leaving them with just the sounds of their recovering breaths. Hah, even those seemed in time. Maybe Shadow was purposefully syncing up to him like Sonic had suggested he to do earlier, though.

"You don't seem to be fairing too bad with it all yourself, for a beginner," finally, his rival responded.

"Hah!" he snorted, "Probably means a lot, comin' from you,"

"But… Thank you, Sonic. I wouldn't even know where to begin with trying to harness the transformations, but the knowledge that it should be in power is… helpful,"

Sonic began to swing his legs over the edge.

"Yeah, no problem, dude. Tails might be able to tell you something more when we get back, anyway,"

"What about you? How did you control your past transformations?"

"They're not always in my control," he huffed, "That one I told you about with Dark Gaia certainly wasn't. It just came and went with the day and night cycle,"

"You controlled the form itself, did you not?"

"Trial and error's a good friend,"

"Delightful," fondly, Shadow deadpanned, "I don't suppose you have anything more helpful than that?"

"I guess it's always just sort of been intuition-based," Sonic admitted, "I figure this stuff out because I have to, because there is no limit that's going to stop me,"

"Your philosophy, I suppose,"

"I do what I want to do," Sonic shrugged, "Not gonna let anything change that for me,"

"I have chosen before to not let my past define me," Shadow said. Sonic leant back to give him the space to speak. "I stand by that. Burdened with these transformations, I felt chained up by a past that wouldn't let go,”

“Past tense?” he noted.

Wryly, Shadow smiled, “I don't care to look back at what Black Doom wanted of me when he participated in my creation. It's hard not to, when I see him reflected in my very own eyes, though. But if I can control this, then I control how I see my past, don't I?" he turned to Sonic, "I just have to break past that limit,"

"If you can keep up with me, then I doubt there's a limit that can hold you either," he grinned.

"Just like that?" Shadow affirmed.

"Sure," Sonic nodded, "I believe in you, dude,"

"Hmph," his rival huffed, slowly removing the eye mask.

That third eye sparkled in the sun even more than the other two.

"You know who you want to be," he encouraged.

"I do," Shadow agreed, a look of intense concentration falling across his face.

Nothing much seemed to be happening initially, but without the energy to do much else, waiting and watching wasn't as bad as it could have been. There was probably a lot happening internally for Shadow that just wasn't visible, he figured.

Eventually, he caught a change in the light reflecting off his rival out of the corner of his eye. He turned just in time to watch the eyelid of that third eye shut on its own and then seal itself, in much the same manner as it first appeared in. It looked sort of like it was just… swallowed up, the way it closed up like a time lapse of a closing wound.

"Weird," he remarked, "Where did it go? Like back to what it was before it formed, or—"

Shadow's attention snapped to him, "It's gone? I did it?"

He laughed, "No need to sound so surprised! Sure you did!"

"Perhaps I will be able to learn full control, then,"

"That could be cool," Sonic nodded, "I mean, just being able to grow any of this stuff for a fight or something. To… Tail swipe 'em, or… I mean, if you managed to get the wings to fully grow in…"

"I'd still rather not try," his rival grimaced, "And regardless, it could be that my transformations and chaos powers are more closely related than I had thought, considering how my damaged inhibitor ring seemed to affect them. In that case, I might need to remove an inhibitor again to even tap into their potential,"

"Didn't Tails say the transformations were only uncontrollable because of the bullet?" he contended.

And, then, ah shit. The bullet!

"Doesn't change the fact that I've never experienced anything like this before, with fully functional inhibitors,"

"Sorry to change track, but speaking of, what are you going to do about the bullet?" hastily, he interjected, "If it's all healed-up over, but you still need to remove it…"

"It would have been easier to remove when the wound was still open, yes," Shadow nodded, "I assume I'll have to undergo a deliberate procedure for that, now,"

"Yeah, but… how?" Sonic frowned.

"Hm? Once my inhibitor's fixed, I don't see the issue,"

"It's just…I mean, is G.U.N. going to get it removed? Not like we know any doctors," he grimaced, "Proper medical doctors, anyway,"

"The other option is I attempt to remove it myself," calmly, Shadow explained, "But I doubt you'll like that, either,"

Stuck between a rock and a hard place, really. He hardly trusted G.U.N. to give Shadow the attention he deserved, but unless he let Shadow sort things out himself on the downlow, definitely risking the other hedgehog just trying to give himself surgery, there wasn't really a way to have them not know about an official procedure like this. Especially if they already knew about Shadow's wound, which they did.

"I don't trust G.U.N," he stated.

"For the best, really," Shadow snorted, "I don't either, Sonic. But as I explained before, sometimes complying with them is the lesser of two evils, for me,"

"I guess Rouge might be able to pull some strings for you, if anything started going wrong," he mused.

"They want me kept in good condition, too. I'm no use to them as their 'special weapon' if I'm out of commision,"

"This fucking sucks," he groaned, the cursing slipping out before he had much time to second-guess it. Eh, whatever. Not like Shadow didn't swear up a storm, when he wanted to.

"I suppose I could always attempt to get you permission to oversee or visit after the procedure,"

"Dude, G.U.N. hates me,"

"Exactly," Shadow smirked, "Because they know you don't listen to them. They couldn't stop you,"

"Heh, okay," he chuckled, "I guess you kinda have to go through with this, and in that case… I'll be there, if you want me,"

His rival shrugged, "You're wrapped up in this enough already. Might as well see it all the way through,"

"I think you do want me there," Sonic teased.

Shadow pulled a face, but neither confirmed nor denied anything.

Sonic could feel his energy returning quickly. Tails hadn't texted him that he was done yet, but he had no doubts that he'd be up and wanting to run again soon, despite that. He wondered if Shadow felt the same.

"What about the wing things?" he pondered, "Gonna keep those for a bit longer, or…?"

"Oh," the other hedgehog jolted, "I think I'd forgotten about them, actually,"

He began to repeat the procedure from earlier. It was a little quicker this time, Sonic observed. Huh. Cool.

"Faster, this time," he noted, "You getting better?"

"Those were far from fully formed," Shadow shut him down, "Copying my attempt from last time wasn't so taxing,"

"Not so taxing? Great, you up for another run in a minute?"

"I doubt I could stop you from taking me on one, anyway,"

"Hey, I'd try to wait it out if I was exhausting you," he huffed, "But otherwise…. You know me! Not one for standing still,"

"Get up, then," Shadow ordered, "Let's go for a repeat,"

"Tails isn't done yet," he warned, but he was getting up anyway.

"You suggested this," his rival huffed.

"Never said it bothered me!"he grinned.

Shadow shook his head fondly, and this time, he was the one to take the first leap.

They finally made it back to Tails's lab, upon the fox's request, a few hours later. Little guy really was a marvel, when he got stuck into something.

"It all go alright?" Sonic asked, strolling in through the side entrance.

"I think so! The design of these is actually pretty complex — I know it doesn't look it, but it is. I'm pretty sure I figured it all out, but only Shadow will really be able to say,"

His brother handed both golden rings back to Shadow — now untied from Sonic, and just connected by the hand — who hastily clipped them back on.

Sonic felt that surge of power he'd been receiving from Shadow finally die down and mute once both rings were back. It was grounding, and he thought he maybe felt a little duller for it, but at the same time… It was like an ache he didn't even know he'd been feeling had stopped. That thrum of power then sunk into his brain and kept whispering and filling his thoughts with fog was gone, and with it, he felt a welcome sense of clarity.

Slowly, experimentally, Shadow dropped his hand, grinning when nothing seemed to change for him. Sonic gave him an appreciative nod, and then began to stretch out a little in the way he hadn't quite been able to whilst joined to his rival.

"I believe it's all in order," thinly, Shadow smiled, "Thank you, Tails. I suppose, if there's an issue, I could let Sonic know, and he could inform you?"

The exhaustion was beginning to set in. Holy moly, he was tired.

"Huh?" he blinked, "I can wha-?"

"Sonic, are you okay?" with a note of surprise, Tails asked.

"He's probably just now crashing after I've stopped giving him a steady supply of chaos energy. He'll be fine, if he gets some rest," quickly, Shadow explained.

"Wait, what were you saying I could do, though? I think I zoned out,"

The other hedgehog shook his head, "Just that you could inform your brother if we have any further issues. Don't worry about it,"

Sonic wasn't even sure he'd known it was possible to be this tired. It was definitely a different kind of exhaustion to the sort when he didn't sleep, or even just when he was physically worn out. It was like he'd been running off the metal virus for days straight again, but sheesh, it had just been a few hours — how was that even possible?

"Yeah, okay," he answered, lamely.

"I think I ought to take him back home," sounding a tad endeared, Shadow sighed.

"He can stay here, if he likes!" Tails offered, "He already has a room here, so…"

"Need a place for Shads, too, bud," Sonic chuckled.

"Erm, Sonic, you don't have an extra bed at your house,"

He caught Shadow flush a brilliant green in his cheeks, at that, and took the small victory over being called out by his little brother.

"Yeah, and?" weakly, he grinned, "It'd be weird to share here,"

"Chaos," his brother sighed, running a hand down his face, "Okay, okay, just get out…"

"I'll make sure he gets home safely," solemnly, Shadow assured him, walking around to approach Sonic, getting in close enough to whisper in his ear, "Now who needs to be carried by who?"

"I don't even want to hear it from you, right now," he sulked, "I could run back,"

"Sonic," Tails reprimanded.

"Sonic," Shadow repeated.

"How are you even okay to run back right now!? I thought I was helping you out because this was bound to happen to you!"

"I am tired too," his rival shrugged, "Just not as tired as you. I'm simply more used to long-term chaos usage than you. And besides," he watched a smirk appear on Shadow's face, exposing his fangs, "I am the Ultimate Lifeform,"

"Ultimate smug bastard, more like," he muttered, before realizing who he'd just cursed in front of, and turning to Tails in horror, "Don't repeat that!"

"Sonic, I know what basta—"

"For my peace of mind, little bro," he pleaded.

"You'd better take him before he starts corrupting my innocent little mind even further, Shadow," flatly, Tails stated.

"Yep," Shadow agreed, sounding both exasperated and vindictive.

He scooped Sonic up easily, a little too easily really, and hung him over his shoulder. Ignoring the unfairness of the situation, Sonic was more so bothered how he'd ended up being carried like limp sack of fucking potatoes.

"Couldn't find a way with a little more grace to carry me?" he huffed.

Come on, he'd have been bridal-carrying Shadow right now, if their positions were switched!

"It's easiest for me, this way," without really being able to move his shoulder, Shadow gave his best approximation of a shrug, "Would you rather I drop you?"

"I mean, sure. I told you, I'd be fine to walk," he caught himself, "Run. I'd be fine to run,"

"Sonic, I will load you up in the Tornado and fly you home myself, if I have to," Tails threatened, "But then you'd have taken more time away from me, and you wouldn't want to do that, would you?"

Tails had a scary way of making him do things…

"Better get going, Shads," nervously, he chuckled, "Before you collapse too!"

"You have a funny way of showing appreciation, hedgehog," Shadow remarked, before taking off straight out the side door.

It felt weird to go this fast and not be the one causing it to happen, but if there was ever a perk of having a rival/sometimes-ally/friend/whatever-they-were that could keep up with him…

He appreciated Shadow taking the care to keep the journey smoother for him, too. It was the small things like that that counted.

Upon getting home the previous night, both Sonic and Shadow had kind of just collapsed into bed. No awkward conversation about sleeping arrangements, just rest, plain and easy. Besides, after two nights of it already, it was practically tradition.

Sonic did take a little pride in once again being the first to wake up the next morning, however. Partly out of spite for the run home the day before definitely, but… Probably also because not many people actually got to see Shadow in this kind of state of vulnerability. Oh, and also because the transformations seemed to have halted for the night. That was a plus.

Neither of them had stayed up late enough yesterday to tell if the glowing eyes would kick back in, but the repair of Shadow's inhibitor ring at least seemed to have made a small improvement.

He left Shadow to sleep for a little longer again, taking care not to disturb the covers or anything as he slid out of bed, before heading out to the kitchen. Success was achieved, and Shadow remained firmly asleep, but Sonic wasn't sure how long that would last when his valiant attempts at quiet were broken upon entering his lounge and seeing Rouge and Omega just sitting there. On his couch.

Instinctively, he rubbed his eyes, but nope they were still there after. He probably shouldn't have been surprised — why would a thief and government spy not know how to break into houses undetected?

"Hey, Blue, finally awake," Rouge hummed, upon noticing him, "I let myself and Omega in, hope you don't mind,"

"Is my lock still intact?" he asked.

Rouge cackled, "Sweetheart, I'm a professional. No one else is breaking in today,"

"ROUGE GAINED US ENTRY WHEN YOU DID NOT ANSWER YOUR DOOR. I WANTED TO BLAST IT DOWN, BUT I WAS STOPPED, SO YOUR DOOR IS STILL STANDING," Omega explained, then fixing his stare on Sonic with a slight whir, "UNFORTUNATELY,"

"That probably would have woken both of us up," he chuckled, just a tad nervously.

"Hm, Prince Charming still asleep, then?"

"Yeah, we uh… Tough day, yesterday," he responded, "I took him to Tails after I texted you,"

"You didn't text about that," Rouge frowned.

Sonic ran a hand through his quills, fixing them up slightly, "Didn't really get a chance to… We found both sources of the issue, but one of them was to do with his inhibitors, so the priority was dealing with that,"

"Ah," the bat grimaced, "Did you… manage to fix it? Is Shadow okay?"

"He's fine," he assured, "Tails got it all fixed up, but he needed a second inhibitor for that, so… I was watching out for him all afternoon. We shared some of the energy, and it kinda took its toll on both of us. Went right to sleep as soon as we got home — not time for texting,"

"SHADOW ALWAYS REQUIRES ADDITIONAL TIME OFF AFTER INHIBITOR RING REMOVAL," Omega remarked, "WHERE IS HE NOW?"

"Like I said, still asleep. In the bedroom,"

"I WOULD LIKE TO ASSURE HIM THAT WE HAVE HIS FILES AND WILL HELP HIM RECOVER, BUT IT SEEMS I MUST WAIT,"

"Atta boy, Omega," Rouge sighed, patting his arm.

It had made sense to already assume as much, but it sounded like Team Dark had retrieved the Project Shadow files all fine. Good. Even if Shadow didn't urgently need them anymore, he certainly deserved access to his own damn medical records, in case there was ever a situation like this one again.

"He'll be pleased to here," Sonic grinned, "He actually figured out how to get a bit of a handle on what's been going on, but I think having his files as more of a guide — uh, assuming they have the right stuff in them, anyway — will probably make him feel a lot better about it all,"

"Good to hear he's been sorting things out himself," Rouge nodded, then pinched the bridge of her nose, "I was worried he was going to deny the possibility that this was more than just a passing issue until we really had to take desperate measures,"

"I think he already knew," he commented, "Just didn't want to admit it,"

"Stubborn as ever…"

"BLUE MEATBAG, QUERY: YOU STATED THAT SHADOW'S INHIBITOR RINGS WERE ONLY ONE OF MULTIPLE SOURCES OF HIS PROBLEM — WHAT ELSE IS THERE TO CONCERN OURSELVES ABOUT?"

"Right, yeah, what's that about, Blue?" the bat demanded.

"Shadow told me about his injury last week," carefully, he began, "With the… bullet, and all. So, uh, funny story, but Tails got out his metal detector, and apparently that bullet never came out?"

"He fucking left it in!?" Rouge hissed, volume kept down, likely on account of the sleeping Shadow in the room over, but bite still very much there, "Shadow, I swear to Gaia— Who does he think he fucking is!? Come on!"

"In his defense, he didn't realize either," Sonic clarified, "He told me and Tails he thought the exit wound had just healed over,"

"Of course…" she groaned, "He's always like this with bullet injuries… Doesn't want to consider the chance that they might have lasting consequences. It's always 'just a graze', or not as bad as it looks'…"

Sonic perked up, "Wait, this has happened before?"

"SHADOW IS CARELESS AROUND FIREARMS," Omega answered.

"That fucking idiot seems to think that just because they won't kill him, he should be taking them left, right, and fucking center," Rouge scowled, "Not sure who he thinks he's helping,"

"…Maria…?" he hazarded a guess.

The bat sighed and deflated a little, settling back on the sofa, "Yeah," she nodded, "At least, that's what we figure. He's getting better — I don't think he's even close to as consumed by her loss as he used to be, but in some areas… Maybe he's just cocky, but I doubt it,"

"He said G.U.N. would actually handle getting it dealt with, though,"

"They're pretty good at keeping an eye on him," Rouge agreed, "For better or worse. But even if they refuse to acknowledge him outside of a 'living weapon' classification, they're pretty decent at dealing with regular health issues,"

"AS ROUGE WOULD SAY, THEY DO THE 'BARE FUCKING MINIMUM'," Omega whirred.

"Yeah, that," she snorted.

"Pieces of crap,"Sonic huffed.

"You said it, hun," with a grin, Rouge nodded.

There was a slight sound from a room over.

"Could you curse out G.U.N. a bit quieter, next time?" having suddenly appeared in the doorway behind him, Shadow asked, voice rough and irritated with sleep.

Ah, whoops. He might have accidentally lost a bit of volume control back there. Rouge too. Her less so than him, but still, combining that with Omega general… loud presence, it was probably inevitable that Shadow would be up before long.

"Shadow!" he jumped out of the way, "Sorry, dude. Didn't mean to wake you,"

"Hmph," Shadow harrumphed attention clearly more directed on his teammates, by that point.

"Hiya, handsome," Rouge snickered, "Sleeping Beauty finally awake too?"

"You're back," blandly, the other hedgehog stated.

"Very astute," fondly, she huffed.

Shadow made his way over to his teammates, brushing past Sonic carefully, and was nudged into a hug by Rouge. He accepted this without complaint, only making sure to still stick his head out over her shoulder.

"SHADOW," Omega acknowledged.

"Omega," Shadow grunted, in return.

"YOU LEFT ME WAITING,"

"Hm, my apologies. I wasn't aware that you were here,"

Rouge shoved him lightly off, sighing, "And you were unconscious anyway, hon. I hear you needed that sleep, so don't worry about it,"

"YES, INFERIOR MEATBAGS SUCH AS YOURSELF NEED REST, SHADOW," Omega responded, and holy shit, how did a mostly monotone robot with no way of visibly emoting manage to sound so smug

"You need time to recharge just as much as us, tin can," Shadow scoffed, approaching his teammate and giving him a light punch of the shoulder.

"Honestly, boys, could this maybe wait?" fondly, Rouge huffed, "Here, Shadow, catch,"

She threw over what looked like a memory stick to the other hedgehog. Despite his recent rude awakening, Shadow caught it easily.

"Ah, my files, I assume?"

"Exact copies," Rouge confirmed, "A real pain in the ass to get, so be careful with that, hm?"

"I told you they wouldn't be easy to obtain," haughtily, Shadow replied, before turning to Sonic, "How much did you explain already?"

"Huh?" Sonic startled at suddenly being spoken to again, "Oh, I just ran down what happened yesterday,"

"Thank you," his rival nodded, "…To all of you. I suppose I haven't made it too evident, but I am grateful for your assistance,"

"You think we couldn't see past all that gruff exterior, Mr Grumpy?" amused, Rouge hummed.

"Yeah, no worries, I got the picture, Shads," Sonic chuckled.

Shadow had been smiling, opening up, trusting, just living these past few days, despite all that had been happening. Sonic knew how to read between the lines in that.

"YOUR APPRECIATION IS APPRECIATED," Omega acknowledged.

Sonic couldn't tell if his wording was intended to be a joke or not.

His rival snorted at it anyway, "Yes, I— Well, I suppose it's not quite all over yet, but—"

"Oh, yeah," Rouge rounded on him, "Not at all! Seriously, hon, we are marching your ass straight down to HQ to get this sorted, later. And we're telling them that you spent days holed up before realizing that you left a damn bullet in your arm, and hoping that they subsequently decide that sending only two of us on a mission is a bad idea,"

"It healed over before I could realize myself. You know that…" Shadow scowled.

"We're going to have to feed G.U.N. some kind of story about why it's healed, but the bullet is still in. You know that, right?"

"Easy!" Sonic winked, "Say he got impatient and tried to use an emerald to heal it, not realizing the bullet was still there!"

"Why would I not realize if, in this story, the wound healed naturally for a week first?"

"SHADOW, WE HAVE SEEN YOU LEAVE SHRAPNEL IN BEFORE," Omega commented.

"It was a few tiny pieces of glass," Shadow scoffed, "Hardly worth worrying about… It didn't even hurt…"

"Point is, sweetheart, G.U.N. have reason to buy this story," she nodded approvingly, "Nice one, Blue,"

"If they care about his physical well-being so much, they'll be more worried about getting the bullet out anyway, right?" he shrugged.

Unless G.U.N. had reason to suspect something else was going on, which they shouldn't, since Shadow had gathered a level of control over his transformations, then questions shouldn't be their priority.

"Still," Rouge lamented, "Only just got back and now I know who I'm going to have to spend all afternoon dealing with. Ugh… she turned dramatically, "You got anything a girl could eat around here, Blue? I'm starvin',"

"We can figure out breakfast," Sonic grinned, "Or, me and you can figure out what we want, and faker over there can have his coffee beans,"

He was at least ninety percent sure that Omega didn't eat, but he guessed he was probably about to be violently corrected, if that was not the case.

"I CAN MAKE THE PANCAKES I PROMISED," gleefully, Omega noted.

"Fuck yeah!" Rouge cackled.

"No," Shadow deadpanned, "You can't destroy Sonic's kitchen after he's let me stay with him for these past few days,

"Maybe… we could try something less likely to end with my house in flames?" Sonic suggested.

"SUGGESTION NOTED," Omega responded, "AND IT IS DEEMED 'LAME',"

"Sory, 'Megs," consoled Rouge, "But I guess I'd better handle this. We'll find you something to blow up later,"

"ACCEPTABLE,"

"Blue, you cool with pancakes?"

"If I have the ingredients for them…" he laughed.

"I can improvise," devilishly, she grinned, "Shadow?"

"Fine. Just don't make them too sweet,"

Huh, Shadow was up for actual breakfast now? Maybe that was some kind of progress.

"Gonna let yourself into the kitchen then too?" he snarked, waiting for Rouge to lead them out of the lounge.

"My, Blue, and here I thought you were a good host," coyly, Rouge shrugged, "Shadow you haven't taught him any manners? Making a girl find her own way to the kitchen and cook!"

She left anyway, cackling to herself madly. Omega flanked her, with Shadow tailing shortly behind. He caught Sonic on his way out, though.

"I thought you knew better than this, Sonic," solemnly, Shadow remarked, shaking his head. He was smirking though, that little—

"Oh, haha, I'm sure you think you're real funny…" he crossed his arms, "I don't see you trying to help either, though,"

"Hmph," Shadow took his leave.

Sonic snorted, chasing after him, "Yeah, yeah, that's what I thought…"

The next time he properly saw Shadow again after that day was on the edge of a cliff. He'd been out running, feeling the need for the sensation of the wind running through his quills and sense of freedom that brought, and Shadow had been out and about too, for his own reasons too, surely. They'd locked eyes, and then…

Well, the two of them had a bit of a routine about what happened after that.

Technically, he'd seen Shadow after the operation to get the bullet out. Sonic had said he'd be there, so he was. The thing with that was, Shadow may have been resistant to most painkillers, but whatever they'd used on him for that surgery had knocked him the heck out. He'd slept through most of Sonic's visit, and had been loopy and out of it for the rest.

So, small deal as it may have been — compared to what he'd been expecting, anyway — he didn't think it counted. This was their reunion.

Here, on this cliff, the same one that they'd been at only very recently, their race having led them right back to it.

The sun was setting, this time, and neither of them were nearly as close to exhaustion as last time. So they stood, overlooking the scenery below, side by side. Sonic was fidgeting, grin manic and infectious, and Shadow was standing, stoic and silent. The sun was glinting off his inhibitor rings.

"Man, going from seeing you every day to not at all for a week straight makes it feel like it's been a long time!" Sonic huffed.

"Don't," Shadow growled.

"Makes you wanna say," he paused to wink, "Long time no see!"

"Must you, hedgehog?"

He grinned, "Pretty sure I must,"

His rival sighed and shook his head.

"So, how've you been? Recoverin' from all this and whatnot?" Sonic hummed, throwing his arms up behind himself.

"I can assure you that I'm certainly well enough to take you in a fight, faker," smirked Shadow.

"Pretty sure you couldn't do that on a regular day, but good to hear, dude! Loopy you after that op couldn't exactly give me a good answer,"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," pointedly, the other hedgehog declared.

Oh, he definitely did. Heh, must be embarrassing for him. Sonic thought it had been kinda weird, sure, but also certainly somewhat adorable. When else would anyone get to see Shadow with his guard quite so far down? He was pretty sure Rouge had filmed some of it, and he would be begging for her to send it to him the next time he saw her.

"Should change your name to Memory Loss the Hedgehog, Shads," he snickered.

"I'm sure you think you're hilarious," Shadow sighed.

"Just playin'," shrugged Sonic, "Doesn't feel as morally questionable now,"

"Did that ever stop you?"

"I like to think I was trying to be nicer,"

"Hm," Shadow mused, "Your efforts were… appreciated. As atrocious as any effort from you, but appreciated nonetheless,"

"Can't have been that atrocious at watchin' out for you," smugly, he countered, "I helped you get fixed up, didn't I?"

"…Yes. I suppose you did," reluctantly, his rival conceded, "I fear Rouge may have been right — I might have done something foolish or reckless if left to my own devices for those few days,"

"Like hack off a limb?"

Shadow grimaced, "Exactly…"

The sun was low in the sky. In turn, the shadows it was managing to cast were small, and nearly concealed behind the two of them, especially with the glare of Shadow's inhibitors hitting them.

Casually, Sonic approached his rival, and swung an arm around him, "Heh, well, no problem, dude. I like hangin' with you! Though… Let's just get lunch or something next time, yeah?"

He felt Shadow startle.

"What are you suggesting?"

"What d'ya think?" he chuckled, "That we cut the crap and just choose to spend some time together next time — no, 'Oops, my alien biology is forcing me to be in your vicinity' needed,"

"I've never needed an excuse to kick your ass before, faker. I don't need one now," competitively, Shadow growled.

He was grinning though, fangs exposed, glinting as they caught the light. Sonic was startled by the beauty of it all. He appreciated a good pretty sight sometimes, but it wasn't often that he got the chance too. When you ran as fast as he did, the sights around you ended up being a blur. Not the kinds of ones that could keep up with you though, apparently.

Briefly, he was hit with the thought that he should kiss Shadow, but nah. He knew he wouldn't enjoy that. Didn't think Shadow would, either. He was content with whatever they currently had.

"Oh, yeah?" he taunted, clapping his rival on the back, between his spines, "Maybe I ought to get my memory tested, 'cause I don't remember that ever happening,"

Shadow leant backwards into his grip, taking them both down to the floor. Sonic grinned as the other hedgehog scrambled away after that, into a fighting stance of sorts. He braced himself for a tussle, as well.

"A demonstration may be in order,"

Yeah, this was what he wanted from Shadow, he figured, bouncing up to slam his foot into the guy's side. No one else quite met him at his own pace in the same way.

He hoped that in the whole debacle that had gone down between the two of them, he'd matched Shadow's pace just as well. Hoped he'd been there for him in the right way, and all that junk.

It was in the moment that Shadow leapt above him that he decided, yeah, he'd probably managed.

His rival's form blocked out the sun for a brief moment, practically hovering in the air as he prepared to dash forwards into Sonic, but all Sonic could really focus on were those eyes. Glowing and crackling with power — chaos power, sure. He'd be surprised if there wasn't a chaos spear coming his way in the next few seconds. But then also, come on, he'd learned that familiar pattern by now, hadn't he?

All the better for Shadow, honestly. Sonic couldn't wait to put this new skill set of his to the test.