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Shadow was no stranger to pain — on the Ark, after the Ark, however they described the now — it had been their companion. Their existence was pain. So yeah, they knew it.
The ever-present ache in Shadow’s knees and ankles had been pulsing the whole way back home from today’s mission. Usually, with their skates on, it was ignorable. But not right now it wasn’t. The ebony hedgehog gritted their teeth and beared it. They had to. The Ultimate Lifeform was not allowed to be taken down so easily by something as pathetic as pain. Pain was just a sensation — they was above sensations. They were.
So they ignored their protesting ankles and knees and kept walking. They had twenty minutes until they were home and could sit down and finally do something about their body.
“Hey, Shads,” Sonic popped up beside them.
Hadn’t Sonic already gone home with the fox and the rest of his little gang? Apparently not.
“Faker,” they returned the greeting, more focused on putting one foot in front of the other without tripping over themself or the ground.
Sonic sped up ahead and spun around to walk backwards to face them.
“Do you want to race back?”
No.
“Sure,”
If they refused then Sonic would know that something was up and they couldn’t let that happen. They could handle this themself — they did handle it, everyday (it just was not usually this bad) — no one else needed to know that it was worse than usual. Because it wasn’t, something couldn’t be ‘worse than usual’ if it didn’t exist in the first place. The Ultimate Lifeform could handle a race ontop of all the skating they’d done on mission, of course they could.
Sonic sped off, leaving a neon blue streak hanging in the air in his wake.
Their ankle twinged as they took a step and activated their skates. They ignored it, again.
Shadow had a race to win, body be damned.
They made it back home. Sonic won, but not by much. Mere milliseconds at most.
Where before there was a pulsing ache in their knees and ankles, now it was more scraping-piercing. Before, they had been able to ignore their body and its pathetic sensations, that wasn’t the case anymore. Not when it was threatening to send them to the floor every other step. But they were home now, back in the apartment that they shared with Rouge.
“Sit down before you fall down,” Rouge told them, seemingly appearing out of thin air right in front of them. She was the second person to do that to them in less than an hour.
Shadow definitely did not have to bite back a yelp at her sudden appearance. Definitely not.
“I’m fine, I'm not going to fall over,” they less said and more mumbled in her general direction.
Whatever, speaking was overrated anyway.
Rouge glared at them and remained silent, until,
“Shadow,”
“Rouge,”
The bat stood her ground until Shadow caved first in favour of sitting down.
They sat down and unclipped their skates, sliding them off and lining them up tidily beside the sofa. Breathing carefully as they straightened out their legs to rest them along the sofa’s length. Their knees protested at the action. At least their ankles had stopped complaining as much as their knees since they had taken off their skates.
That was a pathetic thought. The Ultimate Lifeform should not need to find relief in something like taking off their shoes.
And then they corrected themself, despite the voice which disagreed otherwise.
They were home, so they were allowed to indulge in such things like sitting down when they needed to and doing what they needed to be comfortable. They didn’t need to exist in discomfort here.
Their phone buzzed. Twice.
They were inturrupted by something small and made of hard plastic hitting them squarely on the back of the head.
The projectile was a pill bottle — a painkiller, probably, if they were remembering the white bottle and the label (it read ‘Advil’) correctly from that time Rouge had broken her wrist.
“I know you didn’t take anything when you got home, so there,” she said, meeting their eyes from across the room where she was standing at the mouth of the corridor. “Take them. There’s water on the coffee table, it’s fresh,”
They used one hand to open the bottle and shake two tablets out, just to see if they could do it without dropping it (they could).
The hedgehog eyed the cup of water that was indeed on the coffee table beside them. They could just dry-swallow these, it would be quicker. But the water was right there; they hadn’t drunk anything since before the mission so their throat was dry, and these weren’t as small as they’d expected it to be.
They reached over and picked up the glass.
Rouge was still watching them, they felt her eyes on the back of their head. To ensure they did actually take the painkillers, most likely.
They tossed the tablets into his mouth and followed it with a mouthful of water. And, mostly for dramatic effect (but also partly for convience too), Shadow tipped their head back abruptly with force, and in the same movement, swallowed both tablets together.
“One of these days, you’re going to choke doing that and the tablets’ll end up in your lungs,” Rouge commented over her shoulder as she headed deeper into the apartment.
“I haven’t choked yet,”
“Yet, you say.”
A couple of minutes later, the sound of Rouge showering drifted into the living room as Shadow pulled out their phone to check what it had buzzed for while they waited for the meds to kick in. The apartment was blanketed in temporary silence.
[4:24 p.m.] Sonic: hey. u okay? u were a bit off on the way back
[4:24 p.m.] Sonic: i didn’t convince u into racing with an injury, did i??
[4:57 p.m.] Shadow: No. I am not injured.
[4:57 p.m.] Shadow: I am fine, now..
They hesitated, thumbs hovering over the keybaord as they read over the message that they had typed out.
They couldn’t send that. Because if they did, they would be admitting weakness to the person who was still technically their rival. But Sonic asked, hadn’t he? He had asked if they were injured, not about whatever this was. But he had still asked. So that meant that Shadow owed him an explaination.
It didn’t escape his notice Sonic seemed to be waiting for them to finish typing.
[5:01 p.m.] Shadow: My knees were being problematic this afternoon. Even before that race. The race did not cause this.
[5:01 p.m.] Sonic: u said u weren’t injured tho??
This was not a conversation that should be happening over text messages but the thought of doing it in person to Sonic’s face made them want to put their skates back on and never stop moving ever again, knees be damned. If it was up to them, they wouldn’t be having this conversation at all.
[5:03 p.m.] Shadow: I did and I am not injured.
[5:03 p.m.] Shadow: This is not a newly-caused issue. It is just something that happens at times. My knees ache, and sometimes my ankles do too.
They were surprised when, instead of Sonic’s next message, the typing bubble appeared and remained on the screen for well over a minute.
[5:06 p.m.] Sonic: oh. how long’s that been happening?
[5:06 p.m.] Shadow: My entire existence. The scientists believed that it was a defect of my design.
[5:07 p.m.] Sonic: what makes it worse? is there anything that makes it better?
[5:07 p.m.] Sonic: is it always this bad?
The other hedgehog had seemingly extrapolated what they had meant by ‘problematic’ and had gotten it right.
[5:08 p.m.] Shadow: No, it is not always quite this bad.
For the second time in so many minutes, they found themself hesitating. Unlike the previous time, this was because they were trying to work out how to phrase what they wanted to say.
[5:09 p.m.] Shadow: Heat helps, as does pressure.
[5:09 p.m.] Sonic: so cold makes it worse?
[5:10 p.m.] Shadow: Yes.
[5:10 p.m.] Sonic: ik u said the race didn’t cause this but does skating in general make ur knees worse??
[5:10 p.m.] Shadow: It can, it depends on the day.
[5:11 p.m.] Shadow: You have less questions and have taken this better than I expected. Why?
[5:11 p.m.] Sonic: it makes sense, yk given everything
They didn’t know what ‘everything’ was supposed to refer to but they weren’t going to ask, they could work it out themself.
[5:12 p.m.] Sonic: and i get a similar thing, sometimes, in my feet
[5:12 p.m.] Sonic: less often than u and it might be different but ik what it’s like. i think
Their conversation was interrupted by Rouge reappearing with a towel wrapped around her head. She dropped onto the sofa beside them, shoving herself into the small space between their feet and the armrest. The bat moves their legs up slowly and carefully, like they were something delicate that risked breaking easily, so she can sit down properly before returning them to where they had been, although now on her knees. Her gaze on them when he winced at the movement made them feel very exposed (and vulnerable), again.
Instead of saying anything, she reached out to drape a heat pack, that she had apparently had with her, across Shadow’s knees before they could move their legs away from her space.
They hadn’t even noticed her make a detour to the kitchen on the way from the bathroom (which she had to have done, this heat pack was too hot for her to have heated it up before her shower). It felt amazing, so much so that a small “Oh.” escaped them before they could bite it back.
Rouge clicked on the tv, flipping through the channels first and when she didn’t find anything good there, switched to one of those fancy on-demand movie apps that he still didn’t quite understand — ‘Meatflix’ or something like that (why anyone would name anything that, they didn't know).
They sat together like that for almost an hour, whatever Rouge picked playing quietly while Shadow continued their conversation then switched to scrolling when Sonic left to go shower. It was long enough for the heat pack to have gone mostly cold but its weight was nice, so Shadow left it where it was.
By the time that a more dinner-appropriate time had arrived, the meds had kicked in and the ache was back to a level that was ignorable again. She still frowned at them when they stood up and followed her into the kitchen.
“Doesn’t hurt as much anymore,” they said, heading toward the cupboard.
Rouge had been briefly surprised when Shadow had gotten up after her when she got off the sofa to go consider dinner options, but then she remembered what had happened the last time they’d had a day this bad and her surprise died in infancy. At least this time they seemed to be telling the truth, or they were hiding it better than last time.
“If you’re sure, hun,” she said, not entirely trusting that but also not going to push it. “What are we thinking for dinner?”
“Pasta?” They re-emerged from the cupboard with the bag of multicoloured motorbike-shaped pasta that she had bought them as a joke but had turned out to be really good, so it became a staple in their kitchen.
“Sure. The half bottle of that tomato sauce in here somewhere should probably still be in date,” Rouge said as she pulled open the fridge to look for it while Shadow got out a pot.
Pasta was probably the most normal thing they’d had for dinner in…a very long time.
She eventually found the bottle tucked behind some wilting kale and the eggs.
“Here it is!” she crowed victoriously, setting it down on the bench.
As she did, she spotted Shadow leaning against the bench as they waited for the water to come to a boil. Leaning in a way that, while probably effective, did not look comfortable.
“You can sit down, waiting for water to boil isn't a standing-only job,” Rouge suggested, motioning to the bench with her head. “Drag a chair in or just sit right there on the bench,”
Instead of a grumbled comment about how ‘the Ultimate Lifeform could last ten minutes on their feet’ or Shadow manouvering themself to sit on the bench (both of which she expected with equal likelihood), they were staring at her with confusion practically etched into their face.
A quiet “What.” escaped them.
“Leaning like that can’t be comfortable, so sit down,” she advised. And then a thought struck her, in the shape of the realisation she’d never seen them sit in here before. “It’s not a crime to sit in the kitchen, you know,”
Her friend— housemate was silent for a long minute.
“Yes, right,” they said eventually, pushing away from the bench and sparing the doorway (and the chairs beyond it, likely) a glance.
They did end up sitting on the bench, but for longer than just while the water boiled.
While they sorted out the pasta, Rouge went back into the fridge for the kale.
It needs to be used, might as well use it now. She decided with a mental shrug.
The two of them finished their respective tasks and gravitated back to the sofa with their bowls. Rouge settled back into her spot from earlier while Shadow took the other end again, sitting on it as the designer intended so that they could balance the bowl on their knees.
She turned Netflix back on and clicked back into the documentary about Pigeon’s Blood Rubies. This time, Shadow was also watching, their phone abandoned on the coffee table where they had left it before going into the kitchen.
They were somewhere through a documentary about rubies when their phone screen lit up with a new message. The hedgehog leaned forward to swipe it up off the coffee table.
[7:03 p.m.] Sonic: thx for telling me btw
Why was he thanking them? They had done nothing that required thanks, they had just answered the question that Sonic had asked.
Shadow left it on read. They would work out how to respond later.