Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They run as fast as they can, but it is of no use. They can hear shattered glass, smell dark smoke and feel the ground shake below them.

A building is going down, another one burns away, people yell and cry. Pray and beg. But nothing can stop their horrible fate.

Two siblings held hands as they try to escape, they dodge the fire and avoid the edge, they are so close, the exit is right there.

A man (monster) stands in front of it, fighting a villain who is set on killing the beast, but a blow by the fiend hits the sister.

She turns around and shouts, “Shadow, wake up!”

What?

“Wake up”

“Wake up!”

“Wake up!”

His eyes open to his computer screen, and a bald man he calls boss standing behind it. He fell asleep at work, again.

“This will be the last time you do this, young man!” he says while clapping his red swollen hands.

“Are you alright?” 

“What do you mean, am I alright?” he mocks the younger.

“Well sir, your hands are neon red right now, and from personal experience, that's not the color they should be” the black haired says while staring emotionless at his boss’s hands.

“Oh for fuck's sake, I told Jacob to give me the omelet with no salt!” he says, running off, to probably reprimand whoever Jacob was.

In truth, Shadow didn’t really know his coworkers, he knew he had them, they just never really interacted, not because he is socially inept, but because they were scared of him. The way they looked at him as if he was some kind of alien-born weirdo was kind of annoying, so he would rather avoid them than tolerate it.

Let's see, he started counting on his fingers, this was his fifth time sleeping on the job, he hopes the next time he can wake up by himself. His boss can be a pain on his ears when someone disobeys his laws.

The lack of sleep came from his lack of coffee thanks to his lack of money. Every end of the month, he debated whether to afford his rent or buy a jumbo size bag of coffee, going homeless was not looking that bad honestly. 

He got out of his thoughts as he saw his boss walk in again, with who he assumes is Jacob slouched by his side. 

“I’ve got an announcement to make” he shouted.

“Did the salt get you this time?” Coworker one asked.

“Am I getting a raise?” Coworker two wondered.

“Are you pregnant?” Coworker three added.

With a weird expression in his face, the bald man replied, “No, and why would you get a raise Gabriel?, Jacob over here-” 

“Is Jacob pregnant?” Coworker three insisted.

Shaking his bald shiny head, he said, “No, but he is getting a demotion, from my personal assistant, to data analyst.” 

“But sir, the data analyst position is full-” Coworker one said.

“I know, so one of you lucky individuals is getting a promotion.” The three other coworkers looked at each other with worry, maybe, or sadness, he couldn’t tell the difference.

“Shadow, do you know how to make eggs?” The man said while looking him up and down, in the degrading way, not the other one.

“I think so-”

“Congratulations young boy” The boss says while patting his back, “You’ve just been given the biggest honor of your life, now, go and fetch me some salt from the grocery store next block.”

“I don’t have enough-” Shadow tried to say, when the bald man reached to his pocket, almost falling over, it was truly a peculiar sight, and grabbed a one hundred bucks bill. 

“Here, young man, now go, keep the change, I hate coins, they’re dirty.”

“Okay” He said standing up, Jacob had a weird expression on his face, like he just got his car washed without his permission.

Shadow left the building, with a slightly better mood than before, he could now afford his glorious coffee, maybe even buy himself a new mug.

Walking down the street, he saw a couple of people pass by, a dad with three daughters, a couple holding hands, two kids who fell face-first into the ground, a mom and a son, there really are so many kinds of relationships out there.

He wonders for around twenty seconds if maybe he could have a relationship similar to those, but only for twenty seconds, after that he debates if a relationship between a motorcycle and a living being is a healthy one, he concludes it is.

Finally, he reaches the store, walking in he hears the song dance monkey playing along, he is about to rip his ears out, but it's alright, just another obstacle he has to endure to get the coffee, no biggie.

He looks around and witnesses the cashier dancing and giving it all, what a gruesome life they must be living in. Shaking his head, he feels pity for this pour soul, who’s been condemned to such punishment. But alas.

Shadow proceeds to look for the salt and coffee, grabbing the cheapest, kind of broken, bag of salt he could found, but now it was time to examine the types of coffees they had in store, if he was lucky they probably had his favorite, ‘dark oak manly café’ a brand he has been obsessed with since he was younger. But they only had ‘Pale oak manly café’ this wouldn’t do.

The coffee expert started rehearsing on what he would say to the person up front when-

“Give me all the money in the cash register!” A person with a gun and a black ski mask yelled, voice breaking a little with his squirrel-like voice, it reminded him of something.

“Uhm, sir?, it is seven am, I just opened the store for today, and I haven’t sold a single thing.”

“Open the register!” the impatient robber shouts.

“Okay, man, chill” the chill cashier replies, opening the register box, it is completely empty, so empty, in fact, a fly comes out of it.

The robber is kind of taken a-back and the situation gets kind of awkward. Now, here is something really important to note, Shadow doesn’t like awkward situations, he finds them dreadful, and his body’s natural response to awkwardness is automatic. So do not do what he’s about to do next.

“Hey, questions regarding ‘dark oak manly café’ I have’” fuck, that wasn’t the sentence order.

The robber looks at him and then at the hundred dollar bill in his hand, the man then puts the gun thirty centimeters away from his face and exclaims “Give me that right this instant, or I swear to god man, I. Will. Shoot.” 

Ah, now he remembers who the robber reminded him of, Alvin from Alvin and the chipmunks, a cinematic classic, but enough of that, he was in a weird situation again, so he grabbed the broken bag of salt, and he threw it at the robber's face and ran.

He used to be in the track and field, back in high school, so running used to be his one ability he was an expert in, now though, he only ran when he was being chased, normally by a dog, or a goose, but right now, by a lunatic with a gun.

People stared at this chase like they were a comedy skit, not one person decided to help him, but to be honest, Shadow wouldn’t help himself too. 

He got to an alleyway he knew well and went in, only to discover, he didn’t actually know it quite well, it was a dead end. Now the only thing standing between his one hundred dollar bill and the robber was his life.

“Okay, I know, I know, I threw a bag of salt at you, but-”

“Give. Me. The. Bill”

Shadow lifted the bill and accepted his fate, welp, there goes his dark oak manly café, his future mug, his new promotion he actually didn’t really want, y’know this may be a good thing, he will be free from his new job and maybe this will motivate him to stand up for himself and request a raise he deserves and-

A flash of blue light covered his senses when the gun in front of his face disappeared. A string of wind blowing at his face, and his hair went in disarray just as a guy in a blue suit appeared at his right.

A hero.

“I don’t find that pointing a gun at someone else’s head to be particularly nice!”

A really dumb hero.

“Shut up, I was about to give mister robber over here my money he so kindly asked for, and you interrupted it.” Shadow exclaimed, annoyed and already sick of this noisy and loud guy.

“Interrupted it? Excuse you, I am saving your life!” The loud hero replied.

“Well, I didn’t ask to be saved, you blue neon highlighter” Shadow said back.

“Look who’s talking, you look like you assaulted a hot topic!”

“Well, your face looks like it got assaulted.”

“What do you mean my face, I am wearing a mask!”

“Thank god you are, nobody wants to see what's under there.”

“You emo face assho-”

The robber proceeded to yank the hundred bill out of Shadow's hand, but before he could run away, Shadow put his foot in front of him and the thief fell over. This was not the robber's day at all. 

“See, I was doing just fine before you got here.”

“Your face was about to be shot, I don’t think that's ‘fine’.”

“Whatever” The black haired said, grabbing his money, “I don’t care, just stay away, jerk”

Shadow, now pissed off, walked back to the grocery, where the cashier was dancing to a random Ed Sheeran song, he should’ve let the robber kill him. He bought the disgusting pale oak manly café, a completely black mug and another bag of salt before returning to his work.

“Shadow, kid, what took you so long?”

“I just met the biggest idiot in history.”

“Oh, you met Jacob? Well I don’t care, now, make me some eggs with that salt!”

Never mind, the second-biggest idiot in history.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t unusual for Sonic to meet rather odd individuals on the job. Heroes who were missing a few screws, villains who did not have them in the first place, but it never occurred to him that a civilian would come to lack them as well.

What kind of ignorant, unintelligent fool refuses help from the number one hero. Maybe this emo looking ass was one of those villain fanatics who sent him death threats on Twitter for almost catching his one true nemesis. Doctor Eggman.

“Sonic?”

“What?” the blue haired said, stopping his loud back and forth walking.

 “You’ve been at it for almost an hour, man” Knuckles replied, putting his feet on the table, “Just– come over here, take a sit, we ordered hot dogs.”

“With chili?” The younger, with an excited tone, asked.

Putting his phone down, Tails answered, “Nah, they ran out, they only had that weird chemically made yellow cheese Knuckles really likes.”

“Ugh, what do you even like about it?”

“It reminds me of home, stale and a bit sour.”

“The cheese quite literally glows in the dark.”

“Just like the mystery leftovers in my fridge, I think I saw one move the other day”

"Well, if it starts paying rent, let me know. I’ve got a few glowing candidates in my fridge, too."

“Guys, can we stop talking about glowing, probably rotten, foods in our fridges?” Sonic finally stopped their intellectually questionable talk.

"Fine, Sonic, but don’t act like you’re above it—we all know you’ve eaten chili dogs that could double as radioactive fuel" Tails responded.

“Yeah, yeah, anyway, have you looked into that weird emo guy I told you about?” Sonic asked, now with a more serious tone.

“I would, but, why would I look into a random civilian you just met?” the yellow haired asked, a little bit dumbfounded.

“This guy’s sketchy, trust me, a total weirdo, has probably jaywalked before.”

“Haven’t we all?” 

“Knuckles, I’m going to ignore you just said that, but Sonic, you can’t just- stalk a civilian with no reason!” Tails said, standing up, “I mean, it’s immoral, unethical, practically illegal-”

“I’ll pay you.”

“You want this for today or tomorrow?”

“Whichever works for you.”

Tails saluted and said “You got it boss” while running off to get his laptop.

Sighing, Sonic turned to the red head and said, “I wish everyone cooperated that easily, right, Knuckles?” 

“Bro, move, I can’t watch the boxing match with you standing there.” Knuckles complained while moving his head around.

“Since when do you say Bro?” The blue haired asked, with mild confusion on his face.

“I’m trying something new, now move!”

“Fine, fine.” he complied, moving away.

It had been around two months now since Tails and Knuckles started living with him, they were a (pain) pleasure to have around, sure, every once in a while the yellow head made a weird gadget that destroyed their living room, and Knuckles decided to learn how to cook and burned their kitchen down, but besides that, they weren’t so bad.

The three of them were some of the best known heroes, catching villains and criminals alike during the day and spending the night hanging around in each other's couches. The public had named them team-

“Sonic!”

A pink-haired girl yelled as she furiously knocked on his door. 

“I’m going, I’m going, jeez, can’t a guy get some time to monologue in peace!?”

Opening the door, an angry Amy holding a now blue colored hammer appeared. “Can you explain what this is?”

“Well, I wouldn’t call myself a genius but, I can conclude without a doubt that it is in fact, undoubtedly, a hammer.”

“Well, yeah, but why does it have your face on it?”

“Well, I thought you liked my face?”

“I do! But not on the hammer I use for patrol!”

“Well, if you hate it that bad, why don’t you use the replica Tails made for you?”

“Don’t you remember? You and Knuckles broke it during last week’s training session!”

“I don’t-“ A sudden memory comes into mind of Knuckles saying that Sonic looked like a wet dog when he was sweaty so the blue haired, doing the most reasonable next thing, decided to throw a punch to his face, accidentally landing on the hammers handle and making it unusable.

“Oh yeah, I forgot that happened, no worries, I’ll just tell Tails to make you a new one!”

“Really, Sonic? Because last time I checked, 'I'll fix it later' isn't exactly a reliable warranty!”

“Well, what do you want me to do? I break stuff all the time!” the green-eyed asked, this time with a more serious tone.

“I want you to take being a hero more seriously! Breaking other hero’s stuff, especially their weapons, is not seen as-“

“I found him, Sonic!” Tails happily interrupted their little squabble, running up to them.

“Well it’s been a pleasure talking to you Amy but y’know I got work to do.” he says while closing the door in her face.

“Now, where were we?” Ah yes, emo guy's identity.

Placing the laptop on their dining table, Tails explained, “Finding him wasn’t hard, the shop that was getting robbed had a security camera, I just had to access the automatically saved logs that are saved in the Wi-Fi router which I accessed using the method in which you-“

”Okay, okay I get it, now, what’s his name?”

“Well, If this is him, his name should be ‘Shadow’”

The loudest laugh that could rival a scream had echoed in the room as Sonic fell to the ground almost crying laughing. The blue haired now understood everything. If he was cursed with being named Shadow at birth, he would also be an annoying prick who took out his anger on innocent, well-adjusted heroes like him.

“Uhm, he is 22, works for the company ‘EGGS’, lives in an average apartment complex, no criminal record, average uni grades, nothing out of the ordinary.”

“…”

“That’s it?” the hero asked, dumbfounded.

“Yeah.”

“Let me take a look.” said Knuckles, going through them to see the screen.

“Sonic…you kinda look like him.”

“I do not.” 

Tails looked at the screen once again, scoffed and said, “Y’know what Knuckles is right, same spiky hair, nose, ears-“

“Shut up I do not look like him, if anything he looks like me, he’s a cheap copy, a fake.”

“I don’t know man, his hair looks way better than yours.”

Knuckles laughed and ended their little argument with, “So why are you so interested in him anyway? Is he a good fighter?”

“He’s a jerk who refused my help.”

“That's it?”

Tails now a little taken aback just said.” So a civilian was a bit rude to you, and now you’ve decided to stalk him and accuse him of crimes?”

“Well when you put it like that-“ the blue haired continued, “and by the way, he was not ‘a bit’ rude, words hurt y’know” 

“Okay, how about this, you can go back and ask for an apology, and we can all put this behind us.”

“What if I just go and beat him up?”

“No Sonic, bad Sonic!”

“I’ll watch.”

“No Knuckles, we’re not encouraging this behavior.”

A disappointed “Oh.” left Knuckle’s mouth.

“Okay, I’ll go and reflect on my actions, ask for apologies and beg for forgiveness.”

He's so gonna beat this guy up.