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Shadow was wiping down the counter when his communicator went off in his pocket. A total of twelve silent vibrations that spelled out Rouge. He didn't answer. She knew better than to make any contact with him during a black operation.
A sigh hissed through his nose when it buzzed again. A second attempt meant the damn world was ending.
One of the patrons asked for rum with lime on the rocks. He whipped it up without thought, slid it across the counter, then turned to the other creature on shift. "Smoke break," he informed her then shouldered his way out the back door without waiting for an answer.
"Alright," he lowered his voice once his shoes hit the asphalt. "Make it quick."
She didn't waste time.
"It's Sonic."
"You've got to be kidding me," he gritted out. "Whatever mess he's landed in, he can damn well fix it himself."
"He lost his legs."
"Excuse me?"
"There's further diagnosis to be done but as of now, he can't use them. Knuckles says he'll walk again in a week."
"I don't care about that echidna's opinion. What's yours?"
"I wasn't there for the big fight but I knew Robotnik was involved, obviously. Huge G.U.N collateral damage. Emeralds, hon," one by one the details came into focus, and the full picture wasn't pretty. Rouge sounded as close to upset as she could ever get when she gave him her verdict: "You want my opinion? His only chance is the prosthetic Tails is developing, which isn't so bad. I don't think he would appreciate me saying that though."
Shadow rubbed his clammy paws together. "Fastest I can wrap things up on my end is a week."
"No, no, you got it wrong. You don't need to rush back. I doubt he's up for visitors right now."
"Hells, Rouge, then why tell me?"
"It's Sonic and running in the equation. You'd try to gun me down if I didn't alert you right away."
"I wouldn't do that," he sneered.
The quick peel of her laughter did wonders to the tight tension around his neck, cutting through it like a warm blade.
His ears twitched when a salvo of machinery rumbled to life inside the bar. Another fight had broken out.
"I've got to head back in."
"I'll keep you updated."
Shadow finished his mission in three days.
HQ hadn't been pleased when he handed over the intel. They deemed his approach over the past few days reckless and warned that he could have blown a month's worth of subterfuge.
In response, he reminded them he was freelance. Then, in a flat tone, added that if they kept up the useless tirade—something better left in a voicemail he'd ignore—he wouldn't show up for the next assignment at all.
That shut them up quick.
Back home, he did a cursory sweep of the place, then took a long shower to wash off the grime. When he stepped out to check the time, he shot a message to Omega, locked the door, then began running.
He didn't push his speed because this wasn't training. It was motion for motion's sake, something meditative. He needed to think.
The half moon blued the fissures in between the black trees. Dim lights from the town spilled across the ridge in the distance. Overhead, constellations leaned closer to midnight. The air left his lungs in pale mist, disappearing into the cold air behind him.
He took the long way around, giving himself extra time to let his mind clear. When it did, he veered off sharply and made for the more familiar road.
At this hour, all of Green Hills slept, except for Shadow who didn't need a lot of sleep to function, and Sonic.
Green eyes curved up in genuine joy when Shadow slowed to a stop.
"Hey there stranger."
"We've known each other for a long time."
Sonic snickered. "Not what I meant. How was the gig?"
"Decent," he replied. "What are you doing?"
"Testing out Tails's new updates on the brace. You already know about my condition though."
"How?"
"Yesterday, Rouge said she needed to take a picture of me to show you," his grin stretched, cocky and insufferable. "You do care."
Shadow made a mental note to hijack Rouge's next set of assignments.
Sonic rolled his shoulders, then bounced to his feet.
"Care for a race?"
Shadow didn't respond. He just dropped into position, smooth and silent. Sonic's expression flickered, before his pupils narrowed, sharpening into danger.
"Ready?"
A month apart was practically nothing. Both of them led separate lives that occasionally collided, but Shadow could admit to himself that he'd grown restless without an outlet.
His pulse thrummed in time with the energy crackling like the beginning of hellfire beneath the soles of his shoes. He wasn't just ready. He needed this.
Game on.
This was something they did. Others wouldn't fully understand because to them, running was a dreadful three miles driven by the need to get healthy, get fit, or squeeze back into an old piece of clothing. Something to get over with as soon as possible. They tensed up and as Knuckles used to say, "Muscle through."
Sonic would mock it and Shadow would simply tune it out with a huff. He didn't care to understand. Their lifestyles were vastly different.
Running was something his body relaxed into, like slipping into a hot bath, only better. Give it a few seconds and his body would melt into the rhythm, muscle memory pulling him into something closer to dancing. It was mastery. It was knowing when to respect his limits and when to obliterate it in search of a new record. A conversation between body and mind, between him and Sonic. The slap of shoes. The barbed goading. The beat of heart. Sweat clinging to his temple. Sonic's breath beside his.
Rouge often made fun of him after each run. Said he looked ravaged, though she later clarified that it was not due to the bloody bruises across his body after a vicious scuffle with Sonic. She said it was in his eyes. The gleam and satisfaction. Like he'd been wined and dined and absolutely wrecked, the same way she looked after a date.
He'd nearly kicked her off the curb for that one.
This was who he was. Who they were. The bold act of fusing every fibers into fluid self-propulsion towards the edge of the earth.
Shadow nearly crash-landed but corrected himself at the last second, twisting midair into an elegant arc. The ground rushed up to meet him and he turned the impact into a smooth landing.
From right next to him, Sonic yelled, "Show off!" and he was grinning, and Shadow could feel a smirk cut open his own face.
It didn't stay long.
In the wake of The Incident, Sonic's body still brimmed with energy but the brace couldn't handle it for a long period of time. Ran over four hundred miles and suddenly he hunched over like he'd been gut shot.
Little tremors were rushing through Sonic's legs as he flexed then unflexed his fingers to choke his sanity back.
Fuck, Shadow thought. Fuck fuck fuck.
It wouldn't be wise to offer help. Especially not to carry him. Green eyes were already flashing with something close to hate upon seeing him. Pride made this kind of thing hard to bear. Letting an equal witness your fall was one of the worst indignities.
Solitude wasn't an option either. Only Shadow could understand the magnitude of what Sonic had lost. And that was the problem. Sonic needed his presence as much as he resented it.
Left with nothing else to do, Shadow waited for him.
"It's like a cage," Sonic muttered after a few minutes had passed them by, dropping down onto a nearby rock. "I'm great at breaking those, but I can't break this one. I'm not even the blue blur. More like the blue crawl."
His tone stayed chipper because if this was a vulnerable conversation, they'd both be clawing their way out of their own skins to avoid it.
Shadow's gaze dropped to the brace locked around Sonic's legs. Sleek, metallic, not overly bulky but unmistakably there. "Did you talk to the fox about this?" he asked. "He might be able to update it. Ease the pain."
"So the funny thing about that is—"
"You've got to be kidding me."
"I don't want them to worry, okay?"
And don't want to be seen as weak, went unspoken.
Shadow heard it loud and clear.
"You won't tell your friends," he deadpanned. "But you'll show it to me?"
"Jeez, Shads, I didn't exactly plan on letting you see me like this either."
While that stung a little, he supposed he shouldn't be surprised.
They ran a few more laps around the place until Sonic once again slowed. Shadow didn't comment. He merely matched his pace for a beat, then peeled off from the loop, deciding to call it a night.
"You're a worrywart," Sonic called after him, syrupy sweet. "No need to stop on my behalf!"
Shadow turned just long enough to sneer and side-chop him in the throat. "Not everything is about you, hedgehog," he huffed, looking down in satisfaction as Sonic hacked with a sputtering laugh.
Sonic lingered for another hour of solitude; Shadow, meanwhile, had business calling him elsewhere.
He didn't go home. Instead, he redirected to Omega's base.
Omega looked up from his station when the door slid open with a quiet hiss, revealing Shadow just as he pocketed his key card.
"You arrived earlier than expected."
"Did you receive my message?" Shadow asked in lieu of a greeting.
Omega gave a single, affirmative nod. "The frequency was tricky, but nothing I can't handle," he gestured towards the monitor. "He's waiting for you."
Shadow took his seat with a curt nod, eyes flicking to the screen where a familiar face already waited.
"Vex," he greeted. "Ever think of coming to Earth?"
They kept up the routine for another week until Shadow decided to break it after their tenth run. "Let me get you home," he said, checking over his communicator.
Sonic's quills spiked with instant zapping anger. "I can do that myself. I don't need your pity."
"It's not pity, hedgehog. I need you in top shape so I can kick your ass tomorrow."
Curiously, Sonic's muzzle tinted a faint red at that. It lasted all of a second before he recovered with a leer, eyes half-lidded and lazy. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were worried. Losing sleep over me already? Dreaming about me, maybe?"
"Are you quite done."
"You talking to Rouge about me again? Late night soul-baring sessions? Whispering all your troubled thoughts to your therapist?"
"I don't have a therapist."
"Explains a lot."
Shadow directed his gaze skyward, weighing whether it was worth it to end this conversation or Sonic. "This is a waste of time. I'll knock you out and haul your sorry self back if that's what it takes."
"Don't threaten me with a good time," Sonic shot back with the devil's grin.
So Shadow did just that: chopped Sonic by his nape and hoisted his prone form over one shoulder. He made for Sonic's current crash pad. The fox's den, naturally.
Placing the blue bastard on the bed, Shadow felt the subtle jolt telling him Sonic was regaining consciousness. Satisfied that no hedgehog would crack open his own skull tonight, he prepared to leave before the continued silence struck him.
Sonic's body was giving all signs of wakefulness yet no wisecracks or groaning protests at being taken out had followed.
Shadow turned back.
Sonic's body was curled into a tight knot, frame trembling, face twisted in a way that told him everything. Another flare, and a bad one at that.
"Fuck," he muttered, already rifling through drawers, dirty socks, knocking aside tourist trap trinkets with increasing frustration. No painkillers in sight. Left with not much else to do and an unwelcome sense of uselessness, Shadow willed himself not to grimace as he edged closer to place a steady hand on Sonic's shoulder.
Instead of shaking him awake, he let Sonic come back on his own time. He waited, and five minutes later, Sonic finally stirred.
"Where did you put your pills?" he demanded, pulling his hand away.
"In the—ow, championship cup—"
Shadow glared at him, then at the dusty 20 - Time Chili Dog Eating Champion trophy on the overhead shelf.
Rolling his eyes, he vaulted across the room, grabbed the pills, returned in a flash. Sonic swallowed them dry.
"You actually knocked me out," he rasped.
"Next time, I'm aiming for a coma."
Sonic gave a long, obnoxious yawn, flopping back against the pillow like a content cat. "Bullying a helpless patient. How could you, Shads."
"Keep talking and I'll make sure you stay helpless."
"Promises, promises. You know what I think? I think you're full of crap. For someone who likes to say he hates me, you sure do stick around."
Shadow's claws slid out with a sharp snikt. "Tired of me already?"
"How could I," Sonic answered, then hurriedly, "I mean no one alive has ever had The Ultimate Life Form as their nursemaid before."
Just for that, Shadow ditched the claws and sank his fangs into Sonic's arm instead. A lesson he was always happy to deal out, and one Sonic was just as happy to never learn.
Tails startled at the device Shadow had just thrown onto the table. Already seeing him from a mile away, Sonic merely saluted him with two fingers while slurping away at his smoothie.
Today was hot and bright, and also the day Vex responded with a date.
Sonic kicked a chair out invitingly. Shadow ignored it and sat instead across from Tails with a pointed grunt.
"I don't know why I'm still friends with you," Sonic commented airily.
"I ask myself that exact question every day."
"So you admit we are friends."
Tails jumped in before Shadow could commit first degree manslaughter. "Is this what I think it is?" he asked, already scanning the device's contents with his portable computer.
Sonic glanced between them in mild curiosity. "What is it?"
Tails looked like he might do something ill-advised, like hugging Shadow. "These are the surgery schematics and technological protocols… This is a fully mapped out plan to heal your legs," he said. His wide, young eyes turned back to Shadow. "Who is this guy?"
"I met him during a G.U.N operation two years ago."
Shadow had first met Vex on Mar.
("Not to be confused with Mars," he'd insisted. "Us fossas hate it.")
They hadn't kept in touch. They weren't friends, either, which made it socially acceptable to make his first contact in two years a huge request. Vex had agreed, because his skills and technology were advanced enough to help Sonic.
Tails was thrilled. Sonic, on the other hand, stared at Shadow for a beat too long, because unfortunately, he knew how Shadow worked. There was only one scenario in which Shadow would ever allow a stranger to operate on someone close to him.
"Has this Vex guy operated on you before?"
Shadow nodded, tapping on his right thigh. "A bullet tore through the right nerve. It would have taken me a full day to heal. Time I didn't have. He performed emergency surgery. Good result."
Sonic's brow furrowed as his eyes dropped to the spot. "He touched your thigh?"
"How else was he supposed to fix it?" he asked in genuine confusion.
Even Tails was giving Sonic a weird look.
"I can vouch for his expertise."
Sonic's expression went soft. "Yeah, I'm down. I've got nothing to lose."
"Good. He arrives tomorrow."
"What?!"
"Come on man."
The small shuttle let out a hiss as it touched down, ruffling road dirt and green trees nearby.
The others gathered around Shadow with varying degrees of curiosity, one more frustrated than the next as time went on when he met all their probing questions with the same reply: "His name is Vex. He's not from the same sector as Earth. Now back off."
He didn't know why Amy was spotting stars in her eyes. Didn't care to find out. Sonic was humming noncommittally on his right. Shadow didn't care about that either.
He kept standing with his arms crossed. Unlike the others, he didn't move closer when the ramp dropped nor when a member of the Fossa Colony descended.
Chrome caught the midday sunlight along one arm. The clothes were minimal. The sunglasses were just as obnoxious because he knew for a fact this creature wore them inside buildings.
He did move when Vex came closer for a friendly hug.
"Fat chance."
"I'd say it's good to see you, pal, but then you'd probably kick me off a building again."
Sonic’s voice rang loud enough to startle Shadow from the side. "Welcome to our home, man! Appreciate you coming all this way!"
"You look like a space cop," Knuckles chimed in with approval.
"He looks so cool," Amy added, blushing when Vex gave her a little bow, exaggerated just enough to tease, not mock.
"Name's Vex. Tech specialist—" Tails's eyes lit up like Christmas had come early—"freelance fixer, occasional miracle worker and an arsonist when the pocket's tight. You break it, I promise I know how to make it worse before I make it better."
Tails stepped up in excitement. Vex gave him one look and already said the next best thing.
"Another techie! This trip just went from fine to fun."
Sonic turned to Shadow, awe bright in his green eyes. "Where did you even find this guy?"
"Why don't you go ask him yourself, since you are practically tripping over your own feet to do it."
"Now now," Sonic patted his shoulder, unbothered by the claws that dug in retaliation. "No need to get jealous. You're still my favorite."
It took them a full week of assembling equipment to convert Tails's lab into a surgery room worthy of space-standard precision. Occasionally, hurt would cross Sonic's face upon realizing that it would have gone a lot quicker if he still had his speed. As it stood, Shadow picked up the works for both of them.
"The machinery was delicate anyway; rushing wasn't an option."
Sonic's expression grew warm. "Are you going soft on me, Shads?"
"Hardly."
While moodier more than usual, Sonic largely stayed as happy as he could. His friends helped every step of the way. He seemed to enjoy talking to Vex, who had a knack for storytelling and just enough nonchalance to be entertaining.
Shadow still felt the urge to punch something, but the anger faded as quickly as it came. It meant something more to him, how Sonic looked to him for confidence before going under.
The surgery took twenty-four hours.
"Alright," Vex said happily, holding up his notepad. "I'm gonna need you to raise your left leg slowly to see if there's any tremors. Good, now the right. How are the stats looking?"
"Good!" Tails exclaimed, near tears.
"Okay, blue guy, you're clear. Now, let's take it slow and—"
Sonic vanished in a blink.
Shadow was the only one not surprised, though he was plenty enraged.
By the time Sonic blinked back into the lab, Amy was already on him, but he was looking so happy just to feel his legs again and run free that no one had the heart to berate him much.
Seeing as they were already planning on holding a huge party, Shadow headed over to Vex's worktable near the entrance.
"That's a job well done."
"Thanks," Vex beamed, sunglasses perched on his head. "You sure you want to talk about your end of the deal now?"
"What deal?"
Shadow barely kept himself from startling. He hadn't noticed Sonic appear beside them.
With a swift motion, Sonic sliced his hand down between them. "Mind sharing with the class?" he said, wedging himself bodily between Shadow and Vex.
"None of us are students," he pointed out. "We're not in a class."
"Not what I meant," Sonic flapped his hand. “It was charming the first hundred times before it started getting a little stale. At this point you're just fucking with me." He turned to Vex. "What deal?”
Vex glanced at his watch. "The deal for your legs. We can stay a bit longer, but preferably depart within two hours."
Sonic whipped around, pinning Shadow with a lost expression. "What's he talking about? What's going on?"
"Well—"
Sonic bared his teeth at Vex. "Not talking to you, pal."
Fed up, Shadow told Vex to give them privacy. When he finally stepped away, Shadow turned back to Sonic, fuming.
"I thought you liked him."
"Why would I like some random guy who showed up out of nowhere to take you away?"
"It's insulting how you think he could just take me away. I do it willingly."
"Tell me about the deal, Shadow."
This was getting blown way out of proportion.
"Mar is dying. Its mainland machine needs power from Chaos Energy, but it requires an user who can maintain a stable and continuous Chaos Control for an extended period. In exchange for your legs, I will be staying there for a year to help."
"A year?"
Sonic looked conflicted, though for the life of him, Shadow couldn't figure out why. It was a very straightforward deal. "Heroics are more your thing," he pointed out. "Not that I need your approval, but I'd think you wouldn't have a problem with it."
"Not if it means leaving Earth for a year. What if the deal was for five years?"
"It wasn't."
"You should have told me."
Irritation spiked sharply in Shadow's temple. "Do you trust me," he demanded.
"Of course I do!"
"No, hedgehog. I'm asking if you trust me even when you don't understand what I'm doing or why I'm doing it. When it scares you. When it goes against what you think is right." Shadow stepped closer. "That's what I need to know. Do you trust me?"
Sonic's hands trembled. "I do," was his response. He sounded like he wanted to choke Shadow alive.
Briefly, Shadow wanted him to try.
To his vague disappointment, Sonic did none of the choking. He just directed his glance over the party, then met Shadow's gaze.
"A race before you go?"
Wordlessly, Shadow got into position.
And off they went.
They swept and glide, pausing only to tussle, to fight. A blur of motion. Wind whistled past. A spraying up of the sand beneath their shoes. Birds cooed and water splashed.
Tonight couldn't last long enough.
When the shuttle touched down on Mar, Vex had turned around to ask for his first impression, to which he'd said, "Not much to look at."
Truthfully, it looked pitiful, everything Earth wasn't.
Vex didn't offer a tour. Shadow wasn't interested in one. What they both agreed on was getting straight to work powering the planet.
His days settled into routine: morning tests, lunch break, then powering the grid deep into the night. Rinse and repeat. Occasionally when he wasn't busy and Vex didn't have domestic obligations, they'd smoke on the rooftop of the central building, overlooking the vast emptiness of Mar.
Few creatures roamed during the day; by night, it looked like a haunted planet.
After one of his long runs on such a night, he found Vex smoking on the metal steps. It was a poor structural decision. The surface would've been blistering during summer, had the sun not stopped rising over Mar a month ago.
He slowed to a stop, watching the ash crumble off the tip of the cigarette.
"You're not tired of that?" Vex inquired, absent-minded.
Shadow crossed his arms. "Of what?"
"Running," Vex explained, shaking his head and his boots. "You already do it for the energy charge."
"It's different."
"How so?"
"Have you ever run before?"
"From the police, yes."
"Try running toward something. You'll understand."
"Pass. Wanna run a couple more tests?"
Every creature had its fix. Science was Vex's. With nothing better to do, they headed back into the lab, where Vex conducted comparative tests on their bodies and metabolism, not to save the planet but out of sheer curiosity.
"Your molecules…" Vex stared hard at the screen. "Matter of fact, what am I looking at? Are you—"
"Immortal, yes."
"No wonder you keep boasting about being the Ultimate Life Form."
"I wasn't boasting. I was stating a fact."
"That doesn't make you sound less of a douche. Man, imagine. You'll live long enough to see what the world looks like centuries from now. Though if my history professor was right, it'll probably just be the same dumb stuff on repeat."
Shadow had never thought much about his immortality. It wasn't good or bad. It just was.
Vex added, "I think there's a way to make you age normally."
"You mean how to slowly kill myself," he replied flatly.
"Hey, your words, not mine. Lower down that fist, why don't you? Just think about it! If you ever feel like taking me up on that offer, I'm only a call with an extremely specific frequency away."
Nothing more was said on the subject, but later that night, during his third run, Shadow thought about it.
Maria had wanted him to live, but above all she had wanted him to be happy.
From time to time, he felt something akin contentment, usually when he was running. The emotions that surfaced while he ran were as fleeting as the clouds in the sky, They came and went, mere guests in a body focused solely on the heat scorching through it. The sky on Earth was blue one moment and gray the next; its existence just as vague to him as everything else. He would drink in the scenery, then spit it out, and keep running.
Happiness was a childish notion, like the fairy tale Maria used to read to him. Childish, because he hadn't seen it in his life; no more real than the prince charming and the princess and the happily ever after.
He didn't care for it either way, but he had made a promise to her.
In that sense, immortality had its use.
He would keep it until the day he discovered what it meant to be happy, and not a moment before.
The thing about living on a planet ravaged by war was that it was boring. War was already over months ago.
Shadow didn't have much else to do. He wasn't restless, exactly. And no one here could stop him if he wanted to leave. He simply kept his word. It didn't mean he couldn't admit to himself that it was going to be a boring year.
Vex shared the same sentiment, occasionally talking to him two monitors over.
"Nice evening."
Shadow decided to be polite. "It's adequate."
A laugh. "You miss home, huh?" Vex added a moment later, when no response came. "I understand how it feels. Have to go off scavenging all the time."
"What are you insinuating?"
"I'm pointing out that it's normal to miss home."
"Hmph."
Mar looked like it was dying. Try as he might, he couldn't even find a thread of Earth's colors.
"It's nice out today," Vex commented again in soft humor. "There will be rain soon. The food supply is salvageable yet."
In the distance, through the glass panes, lightning flourished. Rain clouds beckoned. A flash of white tore open the sky—and the whole ground bled rust-red.
Shadow didn't say anything. There was nothing familiar to anchor his gaze. Simply an endless red, cracked ground and the humming presence of machinery.
It's normal to simply… miss.
He supposed he missed the ground surrounded by green trees under the moonlight. He missed the bitter tang of defeat. He missed victories well-earned.
A flash of annoyance lit beneath his ribs; then a planet of confusion, and a light-year's worth of longing.
He missed the green and blue.
"I took off one inhibitor ring earlier. I thought perhaps if I exerted more energy, I could push progress ahead of schedule," his explanation ended with a frustrated huff. "Instead, it sent the whole system into override while I burned myself out. No matter how advanced, these machines can only withstand a steady, moderate flow of power at a time. I should have known."
Sonic didn't say anything for a moment. When Shadow looked up from his coffee and caught sight of his face on the monitor, he scowled.
"Stop doing that with your face," he snapped.
Sonic cocked his head to the left, expression warm. "What, smiling?"
"Yes. Stop it."
"Can't I be happy now?"
"I don't care as long as it's not at me, fool."
Not for the first time, he wondered if connecting the line to Earth had been a mistake. He must have gone soft, and that was unacceptable. Rouge had sicced Omega on him until he gave in to weekly calls, just to talk. "We miss you," she crooned, as though that excused wasting an hour in front of a monitor every other day.
Sonic had dialed in more than once as well, which only proved it wasn't Rogue missing him after all, just her way of setting him up to be pestered.
"I'm not laughing at you, Shads, no matter how easy you make it. I'm surprised, is all. You basically just said how much you miss it here and tried, unsuccessfully, to speed the process up."
Shadow's sneer deepened at the word unsuccessfully.
The door slid open with a hiss, letting in a waft of steam and roasted beans. "I brought coffee," Vex announced triumphantly. "The good kind too, not that mud-ground mess we had the other day. Hey Sonic!"
On the monitor, Sonic's face twitched briefly. He looked annoyed. "Hey," he replied, voice bright, smile genuine, his eyes anything but. "You two had coffee the other day?"
Vex wandered over, ruffling Shadow's quills in passing. Shadow batted him away, claws flashing in annoyance, but only grazed his wrist in consideration of his inferior healing speed.
Vex chuckled, stepping away with another sip from his own cup.
Sonic's strangled half-laugh crackled through the speaker, tight as a pulled string.
"This guy's got a thing for coffee beans," Vex carried on cheerfully, nudging the other cup toward him, "so we have been sampling. Ordering different roasts, trying them out."
"Fun," Sonic said, but the flat edge in his tone indicated something closer to I couldn't care less.
Shadow frowned at the screen. "Am I boring you, hedgehog," he said. "We can talk later."
For a moment, Sonic just blinked back. Then, his face melted, the steel softening out of his green gaze. "I'd like that," Sonic smiled, warm enough to burn. The strange, brittle mood that had clung to him before was gone in a blink, leaving only a black screen.
Shadow felt strangely bereft. The odd urge to bolt from the building tugged at his stomach, and he smothered it with another quick sip of coffee instead.
"Six more months," he reminded himself, ticking the number over in his head.
Shadow was in the middle of tidying up the counter, punctuating his warning about Vex leaving explosives around by pelting chairs at him, when a thunderous bang rattled the station.
"What the hell?!" Vex yelped, darting to the console. His eyes widened, then flicked to Shadow. "A small ship just crashed on Mar!"
Shadow was already moving. Muscles coiled, ready for a fight, he sprinted to the door—only for it to slam open first. A blur barreled through and he twisted aside on instinct.
When he turned, he could hardly believe it. "Sonic?"
"Heya," Sonic waved at him like they'd just run into each other on a Friday night, casual as anything. His grin tipped smug when his gaze shifted. "Vex," he acknowledged.
His eyes were greener than Shadow remembered, which was a ridiculous thought.
Vex barked a laugh. "This is so fun, but man, if I ever showed up unannounced like this, Tish would've killed me."
Sonic's bravado faltered. He looked to Shadow, a bit helpless and a lot embarrassed.
"For the sake of my dignity, Tish isn't his wife, right?"
"They've been married for five years," he replied flatly, still busy drinking in the sight of blue and green he barely cared what he was talking about. "Childhood friends, in fact."
"Okay, first of all, I'm slightly jealous he gets to go around telling everyone he married his childhood sweetheart. Second, why didn't you tell me?!"
"Why would you need to know that?"
"Because I thought he was trying to hook up with you!" Sonic threw his hands up. It was possible that at this moment, no other creature could understand the depth of his misery.
"I have been suffering! It's so obvious to everyone and you—you. You could've said something! Just a few details about your totally married friend would've made my life a lot easier!"
"Making your life easier? That doesn't sound like me," he sneered. "And he's not my friend. All of this has simply been a transaction."
"I'm just gonna go," Vex cut in as he sauntered away. "Too much emotional repression in this room for a married creature like me"
"Begone," Shadow said without breaking eye contact with Sonic. "How was I supposed to know you needed that clarified? You never shut up. One would think if you wanted to know about it, you would open your mouth and ask."
Sonic nearly combusted. "HOW SHOULD—? Shads, you are impossible, oh my god, I cannot believe this," he collapsed into a nearby chair, giggling into his palms. "What should I do with you?"
"Are you having a mental breakdown?"
"Sure feels like it."
"Well, I'd say it's only a matter of time."
He folded his arms as Sonic bounced back to his feet. His movements were manic, a bit rough around the edge. A lot excited.
Dangerous, Shadow thought, swallowing hard.
Green eyes zeroed in on the slip.
Sonic stalked closer until their chests nearly touched. Neither yielded. "Tell me something. You know why you went through all this trouble?"
Shadow raised an eyebrow, gaze flicking pointedly to Sonic's legs. "What do you think?"
"No, what do you think?" Sonic pressed, voice low and impatient. "Why go to such lengths at all?"
Shadow scowled, fists clenching. The truth hovered just above ground. He couldn't articulate it. Didn't know how. Couldn't remember the shape of the feeling anymore. Leave it to Sonic to shove him into the things he hated examining too closely. "I don't have to explain myself to you," he said coldly and turned his nose up haughtily.
The haughtier bastard leveled him an impatient look. "I'm going to kiss you now," he told him, reaching for Shadow's face. "If you've got any objections, you'd better grab that gun you love so much and shoot me away."
And then he leaned in, and Shadow promptly forgot about his own upholstery.
All that needed to be said turned redundant. The both of them had always been creatures of action. Hesitation and fear at the change of status quo had never been on Shadow's mind before, but it was like going to space. It could be done, but one had more earthly matters to deal with first.
No excuse now.
He searched for Sonic's mouth and they kissed for the first time, at last. At the first brush on his lower back that turned into a sharp hook reeling him closer, he almost attacked on instinct. But Sonic revealed himself to be someone who lingered with patience, who raised him to the boiling point so tenderly Shadow didn't know what to do with his clenched fists.
He had never thought Sonic to be capable of this; then again, Sonic had never seen his sacrifice coming either.
They were unfurling. Lowering down their guards. A notion so terrifying it burned Shadow alive, and all the same Sonic was steadfast as he held Shadow firmly, handled him with great care, with reckless abandon, and made him happy.