Chapter Text
Sonic sighed sitting on a bench with his friend Chip beside snacking on the second ice cream today, the blue hedgehog stretched and yawned, it felt weird at night having to transform into that thing, some nights he stayed up all night fighting through the streets, last night was one of those nights and Sonic didn’t want to waste his sleep in his true form.
“Sonic?” Chip flew to his head and set himself up in the quills, “you alright?”
“Oh yeah buddy just-” a yawn interrupted his speech and he grimaced.
Chip finished his ice cream and grabbed Sonic’s gloved hands,
“Didn’t you say you had a friend living around here?” Chip’s eyes sparkled, “maybe we could stay at their place!”
While Sonic felt bad that most nights he slept in alleys hidden away to not scare anyone and that made Chip stay with him he couldn’t bother someone, especially with a form as horrible as that. Additionally this “friend” was Shadow, the one who hasn’t reached out to him and he only sees in big gatherings at holidays, as well as the odd battle.
“We could try to see if he would bring us in the night…don’t count on it though”
Chip nodded and held on tight to his quills as Sonic sped through the streets and to the forest where Shadow lived, he liked his privacy but Rouge gave Sonic his location in case of emergency. Skidding to a stop dirt kicked up and he noticed the lights on and Shadow in the window seeming to be washing dishes with his head gently moving up and down. Moving closer to the door he heard a familiar song and Chip stuck his head out confused,
“Is that…Sabrina Carpenter?”
Sonic tried to make his face neutral but couldn’t stop a smirk to emerge as he knocked on the door, the music immediately stopped and there were curses heard inside before the dark hedgehog opened the door with an eyebrow raised.
“Sonic?” he gruffed, “Why are you here?”
Chip waved happily and Shadow put a hand on his hip looking from Chip to Sonic,
“Oh right” Sonic smiled, “Chip, Shadow, Shadow, Chip!”
The ultimate lifeform nodded and shook the small squirrelly creature’s hand before turning to Sonic,
“You didn’t answer my question”
Sonic sighed preparing himself for the argument that he needed to make to convince this edgy hedgehog to let him stay the night, or at least Chip,
“So, Shads” he started, “would it be alright if we could stay the night?”
Blinking Shadow’s eyes narrowed,
“Why here? Why not any of the hotels or inns that are closer to town?”
Sonic thinks of the last time that happened, he was lucky to get out without a huge hunt for his head,
“Out of money…”
Shadow sighed and nodded, opening up the door for the two of them, Sonic and Chip exchanged a look of surprise and followed the hybrid inside.
Sonic scanned the house, it was quant but had a spare room, that way he could stay in there without being disturbed until morning, it was perfect.
“Nice house Shadow!” Along the walls were photographs of nature and along the walls was a bunch of guns making Sonic chuckle,
“Going to get back into your super dark bad boy phase?”
Shadow rolled his eyes,
“Just for show” he responded, “their models are quite intricate”
While in the past Shadow used guns he now kept them in a set and had all information stored at the front of his brain, although no one ever asked him about them to his disappointment.
“So will this be my room?” Sonic dashed to the spare room only to be met with boxes upon boxes taking up half of the room, “Yo! Shadow?”
“Oh yeah, you’ll need to sleep in the living room”
Chip shook his head nervously looking at Sonic as Shadow stared at them in confusion,
“What are you too good for a couch?”
Sonic hated to disappoint Shadow, nothing would be worse so against his better judgement he shook his head and Chip’s eyes widened.
“Good” the dark hedgehog huffed, “now hurry up it will be dark soon”
Sonic looked up at the sky, the sky darkening slightly as he panicked,
“Shadow I need some alone time you know so I’ll sleep in the bathroom!”
Before he could hear a reply he sped up to the bathroom locking himself inside as the small window started to dim and the moonlight began to illuminate his fur, Shadow knocked on the door but he couldn’t focus on him right now, especially since he could feel it was starting. Groaning he kneeled over his heart was beating against his chest and he heard something outside the door that made it stop,
“Chaos Control!”
Shadow looked down at Sonic, his ears quickly flattened and he tried to bring him up but the blue hedgehog shivered and his legs didn’t seem to be strong enough to stand.
“Sh-Shadow…” he whispered, “you can’t be here”
“I won’t leave you” the monotone voice replied, “just tell me what's going on”
“Eggman…he…” Sonic struggled to get a word out as the moon made his skin feel on fire, “he cursed me”
Sonic’s fur lengthened and Shadow flinched,
“You’re fur…”
“Go!” Sonic cried, “I’m turning into a monster!”
Shadow felt Sonic become larger in his arms the muscles dense and the fur became longer,
“Please…take off my gloves”
The dark hedgehog took off the gloves just seconds before his paws grew claws and became stronger, his teeth sharpened making Shadow’s breath to hitch,
“Does it hurt?”
The softness in the voice made Sonic look down, the once slightly taller hedgehog now dwarfed compared to him, the previous hedgehog now a huge beast, a werehog.
“No…” Shadow’s eyes widened with how deep Sonic’s voice was and didn’t move.
Scratching interrupted the two’s stares and Sonic sat down waiting for Shadow to open the door, his huge hands couldn’t pick up anything so trying to open a small door knob would be useless.
Chip flew in the open door as he snuggled into Sonic’s fur, Chip tried to stay awake with his partner in crime but he was smaller and often used Sonic’s fur as a blanket, preferring his werehog form from the longer fur. Shadow’s gaze drifted from the sleeping Chip to Sonic’s rough eyes, eyes that refused to meet him and preferred to stare at the ground.
“Sonic…when did this happen?”
The werebeast growled slightly, “around a month”
“A month…” Shadow repeated, seeming out of breath, “and is anything uncomfortable?”
Sonic wasn’t sure what the black hedgehog meant, of course this body was uncomfortable, he was bigger and more clumsy and his sharp teeth were foreign to him as well as the deepness in his throat.
“What do you think?”
Shadow stopped and looked away before walking out the door,
“Let's get you into a larger room”
Sonic stumbled out of the room making sure to not bother the sleeping chip within his fur who snored ever so slightly next to one of his ears. Getting to the living room the gentle giant sat on the sofa making it creak from his new size, Shadow sat on the loveseat on the other side assessing the situation with contemplation and analysis,
“So, Sonic” Shadow spoke with a hint of uncertainty, “what do you need from me?”
The werehog looked at the now smaller looking Shadow and shrugged,
“Just a warm place to stay, don’t worry you don’t have to house me, just take care of Chip overnight”
Shadow shook his head, “No stay here, you need somewhere warm too”
Sonic cocked his head, “but look at me? I’m…a monster!”
“How are you a monster?”
Sonic growled, “I’m an abomination of species, I’m supposed to be the blue blur not this huge grey werehog!”
“Am I a monster?”
“No, you’re not a monster, you look norm-”
“But I am created in a lab, different species in one, sound familiar?”
Sonic looked down, “I’m sorry I didn’t mean you…”
“You meant yourself?”
The werehog nodded gently extracting chip from his fur and setting him on the other side of the couch, Shadow tucking him in a blanket,
“Sonic, you aren’t a monster, now, or ever”
“It’s hard to think that when people run from you…”
“I know what you mean, people fear what they don’t understand”
The ultimate lifeform comes closer as Sonic leans down so he is at eye level,
“But Sonic…” Shadow held Sonic’s head from his cheeks, “we aren’t monsters”
The werehog cried gently, sounding a bit like a beast in pain but it didn’t stir Shadow,
“I’m here Sonic…I’m here”
Sonic went and sat on the floor as Shadow sat on the couch so they could both be comfortable,
“Let it all out” Shadow was monotone still but his voice cracked slightly watching the transformed Sonic breaking down for the first time, at least to this extent.
“You never told me how this happened…was it Robotnik?”
“He released Dark Gaia and…and extracted the chaos energy from me…making me into this at night”
Shadow gently pet Sonic’s long fur, it felt rough and dirty, it seemed like all of the nights sleeping on the streets had caught up to the werehogs form,
“I’m sorry…” Shadow looked over Sonic, “If you do want to stay here you’re going to have to do on thing”
Sonic’s breath hitched, what did he want, did he want him on a job or something else?
“What do you need me to do?”
“You need to take a bath”
“...what?”
“I can tell you don’t know what a bath is”
“I know what a bath is!” Sonic tried to lower his voice, “but where would I even find a bath that big?”
Shadow cracked a smirk, “follow me”
The two hedgehogs walked out the backdoor and there was a large lake a couple feet away,
“Oh no, Shadow” Sonic gruffed, “I’m not doing that, no way!”
“Do you want to stay here or not?”
Rolling his eyes the big werehog waded in all tense, the sight made Shadow smile when he knew Sonic wasn’t looking. Eventually Sonic sat down just his head above the water and he began to pour water on himself although it was hard with his larger body, his elastic type arms weren’t stable so he wouldn’t easily wash his body…
“Need some help?”
Shadow stood at the edge of the lake and was holding a towel and a sponge,
“Turn around and I’ll get your back, it’s the dirtiest”
Sonic turned around trying to calm the butterflies in his stomach, the feeling of the sponge rubbing his back made every strand of hair stand on end, thankfully the water made it so it didn’t show that.
“Can you stop that?”
“Stop what?”
“Your tail, it’s splashing me”
Looking back he noticed Shadow ankle deep in water and his tail, splashing back and forth, he had never seen it act this way and he grabbed it and nodded,
“Sorry…”
“It’s fine, just stay still”
The fluffy tail tried to break free from Sonic’s paws but his claws dug into it as if to punish himself for it, Shadow washed the water over his back and went back to short,
“I’m done, I’ll be here to dry you off when you are ready”
He didn’t have to tell Sonic twice, he wadded back to shore and sat down not even realizing how pathetic he was, he just wanted to have someone care for him, Shadow stifled a chuckle,
“You seem to be in better spirits”
“Well I haven’t had too many people actually…”
Sonic trailed off, he almost told someone that he enjoyed being taken care of, him! He was the blue blur, THE Sonic the hedgehog but now he was just a puppy under Shadow’s care, his tail freely drying itself as it wagged back and forth.
“Actually what?”
Sonic sighed, “I…not many people actually don’t run away…?”
“I suppose I am just special then”
“Yeah…you really are”