Chapter Text
Sonic sighed, tossing and turning in his race car bed that, annoyingly, was getting a bit too small for a growing hedgehog like him. Although he had curled his legs close to himself, the bed frame still uncomfortably pushed against his quills, the snoring from his older echidna brother wasn’t helping either.
What’s even worse is that these issues weren’t the only thing on the young hero’s mind. After saving the world with his dark rival and seeing him, along with Robotnik, sacrifice themselves to save the world, Sonic felt an uneasy feeling inside him.
He should feel relieved right? Eggman, his weird grandfather, and Shadow are gone. There shouldn’t be any more threats on planet Earth! He can finally live a peaceful and happy life with his brothers, Maddie, Tom, and of course Ozzy! So why does he feel so…strange?
Sonic felt his mind drift back to his rival, his black and red counterpart, his.. other half..? Would he even call him that, after all that he did? Sure, he had redeemed himself in the end, but the damage was still done, according to Tom’s still healing arm.. and of course, the big freaking gaping hole in the moon where eclipse canon had struck! No wonder why the waves in oceans were acting off.
Shadow was a strange creature. His weirdly shaped quills were endearing, in a way, Sonic had to restrain himself from reaching out and touching them when they sat together on the moon. And his strength, Sonic being pinned against the broken tube Shadow was once imprisoned in and being thrown against the wall?
Not to mention all the abuse he received in their fights..but hey, Shadow got his medicine in return, and Sonic gave himself a pat on the back for that. He could’ve totally taken down Shadow earlier…if the guy would stop teleporting away whenever the hero would be close to landing a hit. Damn chaos powers..
Which was another thing, were his red eyes…natural? Or was that something Shadow was given? One things for sure, Sonic had never seen that color of red in someone’s eyes before. Ever. Not even in Knuckles’ eyes. They almost had him hooked in like a fish out of water.
Shadow had other red markings that were fascinating, like did his stripes on his arms go down to one finger, or spread through the whole paw? Are the red markings on his quills also natural, or does he dye his quills?
But despite it all, Sonic still really loved his eyes. They told the story of this striped hedgehog that the blue hero had become…friends with? No that couldn’t be right..they barely knew each other for chaos’ sake! And yet…
Sonic whined and buried his face in his paws. He did not want to be up at 1 in the morning and having his thoughts whirl like this, especially for Shadow. It felt.. too weird. As slowly and quietly as he could, Sonic slipped out of his highly uncomfortable race car bed that, he still refused to part with no matter how bad it was hurting his posture.
He quickly grabbed his gloves and hastily put them on, before slowly opening the attic door. A loud noise that was a mix of a snore and a snort came from Knuckles, and Sonic froze in place, looking over. Luck was on his side as he breathed a sigh of relief, the red echidna still fast asleep.
The blue hedgehog then tiptoed down the attic stairs, trying his best to close the attic door, which created a faint bang that made Sonic wince, causing his ears to twitch while also waking up Ozzy. Sonic quickly rushed over to shush the big dog before he could bark and alert Tom and Maddie, who were surprisingly still asleep.
Ozzy kept quiet and looked at Sonic, wagging his tail, and the hero let out another sigh of relief. He looked out the window, and his eyes widened. It was snowing! Sonic felt a grin form on his face. He could teach Tails how to build snowmen, and challenge Knuckles to a sled race!
Sonic’s tail slightly wagged with excitement, he was so happy he had his brothers to share the experience of earth with. The blue hero flopped onto the couch and changed the cable to the Youtube app, keeping the TV volume low as Ozzy came over and laid down next to the couch.
If Sonic couldn’t sleep, he might as well entertain himself with some good old fashioned gameplays. A few videos and many attempts to shield himself from the jump scares shown on TV, along with listening to the gamer’s commentary, Sonic felt himself growing drowsy, his head falling into the armrest of the couch, before a knock startled him awake.
Sonic shot upright, ears perked up to listen for another noise. He glanced warily at the video still playing on the TV, figuring that the knock came from the game the Youtuber was playing. Sonic shrugged it off and snuggled back under his blanket. Then, he heard another knock, and Sonic’s hackles stood on end. That definitely didn’t come from the game.
Sonic sat up, and upon realizing it came from the front door, a chill ran down his spine. Who would even be here at this hour, in heavy snow like this? The blue hedgehog’s mind flashed back to all the monsters he saw in the gameplays he watched, and his ears flattened.
He could handle these monsters no problem! …Right? Sonic stood up and puffed out his chest, and grabbed a baseball bat for extra protection as he creeped to the door. The knocking came again and Sonic’s fur stood on end, but he still walked forward. His hand shakily grabbed the door knob and he slowly opened the door, bat in hand in case things went horribly wrong.
Out of all the things that could’ve been outside, this was the last person Sonic expected to see.
“..Shadow?!” Sonic squeaked out in surprise, his jaw dropped open in complete shock. He couldn’t mistake him for anyone else. It was his broody dark rival standing there, in the flesh. He was badly wounded, eyes glazed over, barely open, and he was shivering violently, snow still falling onto his black quills.
Sonic was still processing what he was seeing as Shadow let out a cold “Of course you’d live in a place like this.”
The hero, still gaping at Shadow, snapped out of his shock and shook his head. “You…this isn’t just my imagination right?”
Shadow snarled, “Trust me, I wish it was, too.”
“But how..how did you find me?” Sonic questioned, warily looking at his counterpart. Though, he felt bad at seeing the state Shadow was in, so he pulled him inside and closed the door, hoping the heat of the house would warm Shadow up a bit.
Shadow leaned onto the wall and looked at Sonic, his red eyes dull and tired. “Your chaos energy, it’s…unusually strong for someone like you.” The striped hedgehog replied, his knees buckling, before Sonic caught him.
“Hey, hey..don’t go passing out on me now! Not before we can get you fixed up a little bit..” Sonic led Shadow to the couch, slowly setting his rival down onto the cushions. He then sped off to grab a small first aid kit and hurried back to Shadow, who was already falling asleep. Sonic winced, his injuries didn’t look too bad, but they still looked poorly taken care of, also it looked as if the other hadn’t slept in days.
Sonic carefully started off by brushing the snow off Shadow’s quills. He was fascinated on how they curved and how spikey they were under is fingers…Focus Sonic! Shadow needed treatment! Once Sonic had finished, not letting himself get addicted to tracing every curve his rival’s quills had, he opened the first aid kit and took out what he needed.
“Ok, this might sting a bit, so try not to bite my hand off or something.” Sonic instructed softly. He saw Shadow’s tired eyes look into his and felt his quills spike up slightly. He hoped to chaos that Shadow was too worn out to notice..
“Right..here goes..” Sonic murmured, dabbing a cotton ball with disinfectant, and began running it over Shadow’s wounds. The striped hedgehog flinched at first, before his ears drooped, too tired to even hiss or snarl at Sonic’s work. Shadow dropped his head onto Sonic’s shoulder, his breath coming out ragged.
Sonic’s quills fully raised up this time, and he swallowed hard, doing his best to fix up Shadow while ignoring the strange fear in his chest. None of his injuries were dangerous, or needed stitching, which was a good thing. Sonic finished by putting his special space bandaids on the worse cuts and scrapes Shadow had endured.
When he pulled away and let Shadow fall back onto the couch, his rival was barely awake, blinking lazily at Sonic who was staring at him. The young hero shuffled in place, feeling a bit awkward in this moment, seeing someone he thought was dead, come back to life..although this wouldn’t be the first time.
“Y’know, I really thought you…” Sonic trailed off and Shadow sighed.
“Died?” His rival responded flatly. The blue hedgehog then nodded. Shadow let out a yawn, his fangs showing in the dim light that made Sonic’s eyes widen. ‘With fangs as sharp as those, he could tear through anything…’ Sonic wondered warily.
“I was made to be the ultimate lifeform, the perfect being. This also means that I..can’t really die, at least, not from something like that.”
Sonic snorted at Shadow’s response. “Something like that? That was the eclipse canon, for Chaos sake! It took out a part of the moon!” The blue hero swore he saw Shadow’s lips quirk upward into a smile, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared.
“What you think is dangerous, hedgehog, is trivial for me.”
Sonic scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Yea, whatever, tough guy.” he muttered, before noticing Shadow’s still shivering form. He quickly got up and sped off to grab a big blanket that was usually used for pillow forts that he, Tails and Knuckles would build for fun.
Sonic carefully wrapped it around Shadow, watching him closely. “Feel better?” he murmured, watching as Shadow practically melted into the blanket.
“I suppose.” he bluntly replied. The hero put a hand on his hip.
“What? No ‘Thank you Sonic for helping me! You’re the most amazing hedgehog in the world, and so much more faster than me!’”
Shadow sent him a dark glare, but closed his eyes, slumping back onto the couch. “Thank you for..letting me inside.”
Sonic grinned, at least it was something. “Y’know, you can spend the night-“ Shadow shook his head.
“Your family isn’t very..fond of me. I need to find my own place anyway.” Sonic felt his ears droop slightly, and his smile faltered. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t want Shadow to leave unsupervised. Sonic sat next to him on the couch, scooting to his side.
“C’mon man, you expect me to let you go back out in that weather, looking like this?” Sonic gestured to his beaten and bruised form, and his tired eyes that the striped hedgehog rubbed at, another yawn escaping the black hedgehog’s lips. “Look, just stay for tonight, and we’ll work out everything else in the morning, ok?” The hero said, trying to compromise.
Shadow sat there for a moment, before sighing. “You’re insufferable.” he replied with a growl.
Sonic’s lips curled into a smirk. “Yea, I am pretty cool, aren’t I?” Shadow let out a snort and Sonic felt his fears settle down a bit, if that was even possible. The blue hero settled into a more comfortable position on the couch, next to Shadow, and pressed play on his video.
There was silence for a while, the only sound being the person in the video panic over the video game he was playing. Sonic was slowly starting to doze off before he heard Shadow’s voice. “I don’t get it. Why doesn’t he just attack the monster following him?” Sonic let out a tired laugh at Shadow’s question.
“That’s not how the game works, man. He can’t attack it because that’s not how the game was programmed.” Shadow tilted his head slightly at Sonic’s response, clearly confused, but said nothing more as he continued to watch silently, trying to stay awake as to not let his guard down.
By the time Sonic was about ready to fall back asleep, the sudden weight on his shoulder jerked him awake. He groggily looked over to see Shadow. Shadow was sleeping. On his shoulder. What the hell? Sonic felt his face grow warm. Like really uncomfortably warm. He never expected his rival, the ultimate lifeform, to pass out nestled against his shoulder.
How did things even get up to this point? Wasn’t he just punching Shadow all the way to the moon a few months ago? How was he letting him sleep on his shoulder now? Sonic knew he should just shake him awake and leave him with the couch while he goes back upstairs but…he looked weirdly peaceful, asleep on him like this. He didn’t want to disturb him, not to mention that he would most likely get punched if he woke up the dark hedgehog.
Sonic just sighed and leaned his head back on the couch, trying his best to get comfortable. He had a long day ahead of him tomorrow..