Work Text:
His Purpose, His World
It was happening again.
He was back on the ARK, gazing at the Aurora Borealis with Maria by his side. He smiled up at her, about to tell her some facts he learned about the glorious lights display, when an explosion brought their quiet time together to an end.
He saw the Gizoid rocket towards the professor’s lab. Maria held his hand tightly.
“Shadow, you have to save him!”
His vision glitched, images of the soldiers filling his head. Despite the dread pooling in his gut, he still told Maria to stay at the observation deck.
He still skated as fast as he could to save the professor from the Gizoid.
He still shattered one of the walls of his dream.
Still saw the G.U.N. ships approach the ARK.
Still tried to reach the professor in chains even as he warped further and further away.
He knew this wasn’t real. He’d had these waking nightmares before. And, still, he let himself be pulled along into this hellish mindscape like a puppet on a string.
“Shadow, remember!”
“MARIA!” he screamed at the sight of his beloved sister’s shadowy form shattering from a phantom bullet. He fell through the abyss, saw swirling red clouds, and felt his blood boil.
“The promised time is close at hand!” A single glowing red eye with sharp black sclera beamed down at him in the maelstrom of darkness and blood.
“No…! GET. OUT. OF. MY. HEAD!!!” Shadow roared, his body crackling with energy. Orangish-red sparks formed in his hands. Facing Black Doom, he let out a primal scream and hurled the largest Chaos Spear he ever formed.
Too late he heard two familiar voices scream.
“SHADS, NO!”
“PAPA!”
Shadow gasped as the swirling mass of red clouds and Black Doom’s eye vanished. He felt something warm spatter against his face. Something in front of him fell with a wet thud!
Something…
Blue.
Shock filled Shadow’s veins with ice as he stared at the body of a blue hedgehog wearing a brown scarf. Blood pooled around the hedgehog’s body, staining the grass, while once-lively emerald green eyes stared glassily up at the night sky.
It felt like an eternity before Shadow could his body move again.
“SONIC!” he screamed and rushed to his husband, hands hovering over the wound he caused.
“Nononono… No, I didn’t mean to… I didn’t mean to…” Shadow’s breathing accelerated upon seeing the deep lacerations. When he tried to gather Sonic into his arms, he felt the flesh tear even further. Chaos, did his attack cleave his husband in two…?
When he tried to lift Sonic, Shadow saw a shock of pale pink and lavender-tipped quills underneath bloody blue.
“Faith!” Gently laying his husband to the side, Shadow reached for his daughter only to let out an anguished howl.
Faith was lying on the ground, her eyes closed but her face scrunched up in agony. Crimson gore stained her entire dress and there was no rise or fall of breath from her chest, which now had a gaping hole.
“No… No… No…” Tears flowed down Shadow’s face like waterfalls as he cradled the body of his little girl to his chest. “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry, baby… I’m so sorry…” he hiccupped. He held Sonic’s cold lifeless hand and realized that his husband must have tried to shield Faith with his own body when he attacked them.
Shadow looked up and saw the ARK orbiting around the shattered moon, its cold metal face grinning mockingly at his misery. He wailed and screamed as he held the bodies of the two people he loved more than anything in the world, begging to whatever gods were out there to turn back time, kill him instead, give them back to him.
He promised Sonic that they would face whatever the world threw at them together.
Heart-rending sobs tore from his throat as he sent out pulses of Chaos Energy over Sonic and Faith’s wounds in a vain attempt to bring them back.
He promised Faith that he would always be there for her.
And, in the end, he was the one who killed them.
Tails will never forgive him. Amy will despise him. Knuckles will call him a monster. Sticks will run away at the sight of him. Rouge will be disgusted. Omega will end him for what he’d done. All his friends at the Restoration, hell, even Eggman, will hate him.
They had every right and reason to. But they could never hate him as much as he hated himself.
Shadow slumped back, his Chaos Energy depleted, clutching onto the bodies of his husband and his daughter as they grew cold. He looked up at the sky again, at the cold empty stars and the mocking smile on the ARK’s face.
Watching him become all alone again.
Shadow cradled his loved ones’ bodies and wailed at the top of his lungs.
“….ds…!”
“Shads!”
“SHADOW, WAKE UP!!!”
Shadow shot up in a tangle of blankets, screaming. He felt somebody’s hands on his shoulders flinched, his screams dying down.
“Hey, hey, hey… it’s okay… Babe, it’s okay…” Sonic whispered as he gently maneuvered his husband to sit in his lap. His husband shook like a leaf and his chest heaved with sobs while his quills were puffed out in a clear sign of emotional distress. Sonic gently rubbed small circles on Shadow’s back, wondering what could have made the latter so terrified.
‘Could it have been another nightmare about Maria?’ he wondered before Shadow blinked his tear-filled eyes at him and gasped.
“S-Sonic?! Oh my God! A-are you okay?! Your stomach! I-is your stomach okay?!” Shadow babbled, patting Sonic down and lifting the blanket to see that his husband’s stomach didn’t have any injuries.
“I’m okay, babe,” Sonic soothed him, running a hand through Shadow’s quills.
“You’re okay… Y-you’re okay…” Shadow stammered before his eyes went wide. “Faith? Wh-where’s Faith?!”
“She’s in her room, sleeping. Shadow, are you…?” Sonic barely got the words out before the black and red hedgehog teleported out of the room. Getting out of bed, he dashed towards Faith’s bedroom.
At the same time, Shadow appeared before Faith’s bedroom door. His hand trembled as he opened the sunflower-dotted door and entered his daughter’s room.
Faith was in bed, lying with her back turned to the door. Shadow’s breath caught in his throat. He hadn’t killed Sonic, but did he…?
Faith yawned and rolled over, facing Shadow, hugging Lulubelle.
Shadow felt his knees buckle and he covered his mouth to muffle his cries. He felt his husband’s arms wrap around him and melted into Sonic’s embrace.
“We’re okay, babe… We’re okay…” Sonic murmured and wiped Shadow’s tears as they fell.
“I thought you were… I thought she was… I… I…” Shadow gasped before dissolving into more sobs.
“Really bad nightmare?” Sonic whispered.
Shadow whimpered and nodded, pressing his ear against Sonic’s chest. The steady thumping of his husband’s heartbeat now sounded like the sweetest music to his ears.
It meant his husband was alive and it meant that he hadn’t killed him and their daughter.
“M’sorry…” Shadow mumbled and Sonic shook his head.
“You don’t have to apologize for anything, Shads,” he whispered, meeting his husband’s gaze. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
“N-no… I don’t want to think about…” For a second, Shadow felt the warm splatter of his husband’s blood on his face, saw those empty lifeless green orbs, and sobbed which made Sonic up his efforts to comfort him.
“Dad…?”
Sonic’s gaze snapped up to find Faith rubbing her eyes as she sat up in bed.
“Dad, what are you…?” Faith’s ears twitched as she picked up the sound of Shadow’s sobs. “Wait, why’s Papa crying?” she asked, sliding out of bed, holding Lulubelle.
“He had a really bad dream, kiddo,” Sonic explained and held a hand out to their daughter. “I think Papa needs more hugs.”
Faith didn’t need to be told twice and padded over to her parents. Slotting herself beneath Sonic’s left arm, she wrapped her arms around Shadow in a hug. Nuzzling into her Papa’s chest fur, Faith mumbled, “It’s okay, Papa. The bad dream can’t hurt you here. You’re safe now.”
Shadow didn’t say anything, sobbing quietly, as Sonic and Faith embraced him. Several minutes passed before he stopped crying and just focused on the warmth of his family’s hugs and the sound of their heartbeats and breathing.
“Feeling a little better?” Sonic asked and nuzzled the top of Shadow’s head.
“Mmhmm…” Shadow mumbled.
“Wanna go back to bed?”
“T’ink so…”
“Can we get warm milk first, please, Dad?” Faith blinked her merlot eyes up at Sonic. “I think Papa wants some too,” she suggested.
“Of course, kiddo. Let’s all have some warm milk. And we can go sleep in the big bed together,” Sonic cooed.
Shadow let himself be led to the kitchen where Sonic poured milk into three mugs. Sonic’s mug had golden rings on it. Shadow’s mug had #1 Ultimate Lifeform written on it (his birthday present from last year). Faith’s mug had a unicorn and rainbows. The Robotnik-Hedgehog family sat on the kitchen island, quietly sipping their warm milk.
When they’d washed their mugs and brushed their teeth, the three of them headed to the master bedroom. Though Faith excused herself for a second and came running into her parents’ room with a storybook.
“Papa, I can tell you a bedtime story so you can go to sleep if you want.”
Shadow’s heart melted and he nearly cried again as he leaned against Sonic. “I’d like that very much, sweetheart,” he whispered with a tiny smile. He got cozy under the covers, Sonic wrapping an arm around his shoulders, while Faith settled between them and opened her storybook.
“Once upon a time, there was a little prince who lived on an asteroid…”
Shadow sighed and let his daughter’s sweet voice and his husband’s cuddles lull him into a peaceful sleep.
It was several weeks until Shadow told Sonic about his nightmare. And all the while, Sonic listened patiently and held his hand as they sat on the porch while Faith played on the beach.
“Oh, babe…” Sonic hugged his husband tightly. “That won’t happen. Faith and I know for sure that it won’t ever happen,” he murmured.
“How are you so sure?” Shadow sighed. “I thought the waking nightmares had stopped after I got rid of Black Doom at the same time you vanquished the Time Eater...”
A flashback of Sonic and Faith’s dream corpses raced through his mind and he shuddered.
“What if they start up again now that I’ve had a nightmare like it?” he asked Sonic, throat tight.
“Because I know that, no matter what, you would never, ever hurt us. You’d never hurt a single quill on Faith’s head.” Sonic smiled and placed his hands on Shadow’s cheeks. “If, in the near-impossible chance that you have one of those waking nightmares again, I’m going to do whatever I can to help you return to reality,” he reassured his husband.
Shadow leaned into Sonic’s touch and saw Faith laughing as she did cartwheels on the beach. Chaos, he really didn’t know what he did to deserve a family as wonderful as his. A husband who was ready to follow him to Hell and back and a daughter who had a big heart despite the hurts she endured.
If Maria were alive, she would have adored Sonic and Faith. Shadow hoped she was proud of the life he made for himself.
“You two are my world,” Shadow confessed. At Sonic’s inquisitive look, he smiled. “Maria had been my original purpose. I was meant to cure her. When I lost her, it took a long time for me to find a new purpose. For a longer time, I thought protecting the planet in her name would be it. And then… I fell for you. Then we met Faith and I just knew. You two are my new purpose, my whole world,” he told him.
“Shadow…” A soft red blush spread across Sonic’s face, making the dark hedgehog chuckle.
“I still love this planet because Maria did. Now I have another reason to love it: because my two most favorite people are here. You and Faith are my reason to live and enjoy living. And you’re right, Sonic. I’m not going to let one bad dream keep me from enjoying life with my family,” Shadow promised.
“There’s my Shads,” Sonic cheered, peppering Shadow’s muzzle with butterfly kisses.
“Sonic!” Shadow laughed and reached out to tickle the blue hedgehog’s sides.
The two hedgehogs’ laughter reached Faith’s ears. Seeing her parents kissing and tickling each other, she giggled and ran to her parents to give them hugs.
“Dad! Papa! Can we build a sand castle? A really big sand castle?” she asked, her eyes sparkling.
“Of course, sweetheart.” Shadow picked her up and spun, delighting in his daughter’s laughter. “Let’s make the best sand castle the world’s ever seen,” he declared.
“I’ll get the buckets and spades.” Sonic sprang to his feet and ran inside the house, returning a nanosecond later with colorful plastic buckets and trowels slung on his arms.
Taking Faith’s hand in his, Shadow walked to the beach with his husband and daughter on either side of him. Looking out at the horizon then at his husband and daughter, Shadow grinned.
He had his whole world with him, safe and sound.
The last vestiges of his nightmare faded away.