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Rouge helps Shadow brush out his quills.
She finds him in the bathroom an hour prior: running their talons through messy, jagged quills, cursing quietly as their fingers get caught in knots they weren’t even aware of, practically fighting against the natural pattern of said quills and generally struggling, to put it quite bluntly.
“Would you like some help with that?” The bat questions innocently, standing in the wide-open doorway of the bathroom, as she watches the hedgehog turn to face her. They pause their movements, hands dropping to their sides, and agreeing rather reluctantly.
Hence, she invites him into her bedroom, allowing the hedgehog to sit on her bed and placing an old towel under their back. Gentle jazz music plays from the radio/CD player laying on her dresser, and Rouge digs through the wicker basket of hair supplies and products whilst setting aside a few essentials. The essentials include only a few hair-ties, a fine-tooth comb and another hair brush she would dub as ‘industrial’, for lack of a better word.
Rouge switches off the big light in her bedroom, mitigating the darkness with a few scented candles and the salt lamp placed on her nightstand. It eases the tension in the room as Shadow fidgets with their hands, startling when they feel the bed sink from Rouge’s weight when she moves to sit down.
The bat brings a pair of silver scissors with her as a last thought, beginning to comb through the dark quills interrupted occasionally with striking streaks of red. Shadow holds up the higher layers of their spines as Rouge uses a few bobbles to tie them out of the way. “You need to start from the bottom, otherwise they’ll be breaking off, and knotting all the more.” She says, praying silently that her approach isn’t too foreign: Amy Rose is one of the only other hedgehogs she can rely on for advice in the matter of quill-care, although she can imagine the young lady wouldn’t be too pleased receiving texts from the bat at midnight.
Humming along to the pleasant melody emanating from the radio, Rouge starts brushing through the hybrid’s spines, quiet apologies leaving her lips as she tries to avoid pulling too harshly. Shadow murmurs something unintelligible.
“You’ve got a crap ton of damaged ends, doll,” Rouge’s hand reaches for the scissors instinctively, “d’you want me to cut them off? It’ll be a centimetre or two, at most.”
Shadow thinks for a moment, reaching back to feel at the damaged ends for themselves. “Okay.” Then, after a few seconds: “I trust you.”
Slim fingers group a handful of spines, snipping purposefully in the way that the sharp ends land on the towel laid out, and not on the silky duvet cover. The difference is diminutive, though the bat continues as she successfully detangles the first section of spikes; Rouge trims a couple more ends where necessary, hissing as she catches a finger on the sharp spike. Shadow attempts to apologise, but she shrugs him off after fluffing out the first section with her fingers.
“Thank you for doing this for me.” Shadow says softly, whistling towards the door left ajar. Rouge abandons her inquiry at the action as through the hallway, the dark Chao stumbles in, clambering onto Shadow’s lap and splaying out in the hedgehog’s lap.
“It’s no bother, baby.” Rouge answers with a smile, leaning over to stroke the Chao as they gaze around the weakly-familiar bedroom. The flickering flames of the candles on the shelves seem to enamour the little creature.
“I haven’t had anyone offer to help me with this before.” The hybrid says, “I helped Maria brush her hair, many years ago. It was extremely brittle from all the side-effects of the many drugs she regularly took, and the NIDS didn’t help with that.”
“I’m sorry for Maria,” Rouge comforts, squeezing their shoulder before returning to detangling and trimming the mixture of black and red quills before her. Honestly? She would have to say that the grown-out and longer quill-style superiorly suits Shadow’s natural quill pattern, and their appearance as a whole, at least from the glimpses she’s witnessed from older pictures, and the day she first met the brooding hedgehog.
“It isn’t your fault, I don’t see why you’re apologising.” They retort softly.
Rouge hums in acknowledgement, unknowing of how to further carry the conversation. Luckily, the hybrid proceeds to continue speaking.
“I wasn’t very good at it; I don’t know why she would trust me with such a task.” Shadow muses, smiling to themselves at the Chao’s antics, where they proceed to stretch out over the woman’s luxurious duvet cover. Amidst the limited light, the Chao’s dark fur isn’t difficult to make out against the baby pink threads.
“Maybe it was a bonding thing for the two of you?” Rouge moves onto the second layer of spikes.
“Our bonding moments were spent in the observatory,” the hedgehog corrects, “on the rare occasions I was granted permission to sit in her bedroom, she would read to me. Actually, as soon as I’d learnt to read, it was me who read to her, especially during her worse days.”
“What kinda books d’ the pair of ya read?” The bat detangles the quills with ease, and begins to trim any of the dead-ends sticking out to her. Using the fine-tooth comb, she manipulates the smooth spines to sit in their natural shape, carefully laying out the streaks of red to sit beautifully defined atop the black.
“They brought us new books when we received deliveries from outside of the ARK,” Shadow explains, “though we owned a collection of tales written by Hans Christian Andersan. Maria adored the book. As far as I remember, ‘The Little Mermaid’ was one of her favourites.” Shadow pauses, sucking in a deep breath. “I think I can recite the story by memory, to this day.”
“There was also an atlas.” The hedgehog continues, “I don’t think we read much of the educational content, sans what was required for our curriculum, as much as we gazed at the illustrations and diagrams.”
“A scientist who mainly supervised the deliveries, although I couldn’t possibly recall their name, they would bring us photographs from Earth.”
“What sort of photos?” Rouge asks, shuffling in her seat on the bed as a way to better reach the top of the hedgehog’s spikes. The bat keeps her distance as the spines splay out, untying the second to last layer of spines, and starting from the pointed bottom as she begins to brush them out.
“It would be the coasts, and sometimes the cities.” The hedgehog pauses as he digs deep in his memory. “Meadows and fields, and even the extreme climates such as deserts and the polar regions, although we sourced those photographs on our own from geographical magazines.”
“Cities were her favourite, she craved seeing the people, and, oh, how she wanted to climb a skyscraper: see the skies from the safety of Earth and still be under the atmosphere.” Shadow pauses, in a manner that makes Rouge assume he intends to change the topic.
“The beaches were my favourite. I mean, seeing the oceans from the atmosphere, and getting to see the very edge of where land meets sea. . .” The hybrid stops for a few seconds, hand ceasing in motion from where they subconsciously pet the Chao laying on Rouge’s sheets. “The idea had always intrigued me.”
Rouge hums. “If you ever want to visit the beach, all you’ve gotta do is say the word.”
“I considered living there once.” Shadow confesses.
“Once?” The bat repeats.
“The city isn’t as bad anymore,” they mutter with a faint chuckle, “the ocean I can always visit, although, the urban side of society certainly has many more things to do. That doesn’t include working and commuting.” Shadow laughs quietly, arm stretching out and behind their back as they experimentally run a hand over the quills that have been brushed out and styled.
“I’ll be done in a little bit,” Rouge answers, batting the hybrid’s hand away and proceeding to trim a few quills from the section she works on. Her hands slip, and she cuts off a centimetre and a half more than intended. Eyes widening in muted panic, Rouge tucks the section of quills under a strip of red; they will grow back eventually, and it isn’t like she has compromised any major length.
“What led you to keeping your quills long?” The woman asks quite suddenly: “I think it suits you, I guess I’m just a little curious myself.”
Shadow ponders for a minute. “I prefer them this way,” and then, “cutting them shorter never occurred as much of an option to me: if I wasn’t working, or out on missions, it would be saving the world, or something like that.”
The white bat moves onto the semi-final layer of quills, brushing them out respectively, trimming the damaged ends, then splitting them apart to where they should lay naturally. Rouge sits on her knees as she starts to work on the top layer.
The Chao chirps in their sleep, mumbling under their breath and rolling over to face away from the pair of Mobians.
“What happened to not wanting a Chao, hrm?” Rouge teases, heart warming at the sight of the critter alone.
“It’s-” The hybrid pauses, “It requires effort, and I wasn’t willing to take in a Chao if I would be unable to meet their needs.”
“And, yet?”
“And yet, I took this little guy in.” Shadow’s voice lowers, “I expected caring for a Chao to be more demanding, but I suppose it isn’t too different to caring for myself.”
The bat works through a rough tangle in the hedgehog’s quills, relying on the hairbrush to work through the knot without pulling at the hedgehog’s quills. Surely, Shadow was well on the road of bettering their eating habits; after a year of a lack of sufficient nutrients, their body is still recalibrating, however. This includes the state of their quills, certainly not shedding to such a severe extent. Although still thin and falling out, the red highlights truly do serve to highlight Shadow’s appearance as a whole.
“You’re lucky to have natural highlights, y’know?” Rouge laments, “I mean, I know a good few Mobians out there who’d kill to have natural highlights. I’ve only heard the nightmare that is paint-job touch-ups.” Rouge smoothes the spikes down, using the comb to fix the spines into the correct position.
“Thank you, I don’t think I ever considered it too much.” Shadow replies.
Using her nails, Rouge combs through the quills for a last time, fixing them into the correct shape and double-checking to avoid having any out of place. Shadow reaches out to feel her work, and she lets him.
“I guess I’m just about done, then.” Rouge sits back down on her ass, massaging her sore ankles and exhaling in relief as she stretches out her knees. The bat stands up, folding over the towel containing tiny snips of broken black and red quills, and tosses them into the bin.
Shadow stands up, scooping his Chao into his arms and examining Rouge’s handiwork in her body-length mirror. The quills quiver as he shakes his head gently, although none fall out of place, and none fall into terrible tangles once more. Honestly, Shadow can’t even say he is aware of how they became such a mess in the first place; while he never prides himself on quill-care, appearing socially acceptable is enough to be considered a similar thing.
“Y’ happy?” The bat begins putting away the hair products.
“I am, thank you, Rouge.”
“One last thing-” The bat holds out the hairbrush to him, letting the hedgehog take it with his free hand that doesn’t carry the Chao. “You can hold onto that: I never used it in the first place, and hey, it works if y’ ever need to tame those quills of yours again.”
The dark hedgehog hovers around the doorway, gaze lingering on the mould of plastic in their hands. They mutter a thank-you before leaving the bat’s bedroom, and Rouge watches Shadow retreat to their own bedroom as they pull the door closed. When she checks the time, it is luckily only quarter-to one, and the bat blows out the scented candles before crawling under the covers, basking in the pleasant smell of vanilla.
She falls asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow.