Chapter Text
Shadow sent a quick glance around the densely wooded area that he had chosen, a spot deep in the jungles of Soumerca. It was terribly, cacophonously loud, in a way that made his ears instinctually try to pin back, but he forced himself to listen for anything unusual. Here, in this remote a location, at this time of night, it was highly unlikely that he would be interrupted, but Shadow’s luck had been sour lately and he had no intention of letting anyone see what was about to happen.
After he had double, triple, and quadruple checked his surroundings, Shadow took one final look at the jungle around him before snapping himself into the boughs of a nearby tree. The branches were thick, covered in epiphytes, and Shadow found a spot against the trunk that was coated in soft moss. Settling down, he took a deep breath, finally letting his ears press against his skull to muffle the incessant noise.
He had taken to doing this regularly after the whole mess with the Black Arms, specifically after an offhanded comment Rouge had made about the ruthlessness with which he approached the alien invaders. The bat likely hadn’t realized the extent to which that comment had made gears spin in Shadow’s head, but he had found himself ruminating on it for days afterward. Had he been that obvious? He had always prided himself on his pragmatism, being able to file away any and all emotional responses in order to approach any situation fully objectively.
Of course, this rumination brought up the times at which he had acted on pure emotion, like with everything that had happened with the eclipse cannon, after which Shadow had sworn not to let his rage and grief control him. He had clearly failed, spectacularly, with how he had handled the invasion. Nearly a month of returning to that truth had led him to this.
Finding time in his busy schedule every few weeks, choosing a quiet spot, and letting everything bubble up before it had a chance to reveal itself to those who were relying on him to be the logical one. He’d had to stop going to the icy plains in Holoska after an errant flash of blue had, for lack of a better term, spooked him, and he’d had to teleport away. Since then, he’d been coming to the jungles of Soumerca, somewhere he was sure a vast majority of that nosy friend group would rather be caught dead than visit. Especially a certain blue furball that had a habit of catching him at his worst.
Shadow took another deep breath. In and out, steady. This was the worst part, deconstructing the walls and masks that he spent so much effort maintaining. His state during the Black Arms invasion, his willingness to go along with some of Doom’s plotting in order to fill the gaps in his memory, had caused Rouge to start to question his behavior if he so much as made a sudden decision not fully rooted in fact. It was necessary to maintain his facade of cold indifference, at least until he proved himself trustworthy again. That was to say nothing of Sonic’s friends, who had been, infuriatingly, showering him in their pity after the whole ordeal. He much preferred the treatment he had gotten when he came back after his fall, how everyone had been too busy to entertain anything that wasn’t the task at hand.
He let himself focus on the frustration, the anger, that those pitying looks thrown his way had a habit of bringing far too close to the surface for his liking. Rage was the emotion he found the most ease harnessing, anything softer had a habit of reminding him of things he’d rather not dwell on. Like straw-colored hair, bubbling laughter– he forcefully shoved those thoughts away. Redirected toward safer feelings. The unwanted slap on his shoulder that he’d received from a coworker at GUN this week. The look that the red brute, of all mobians, threw towards him when he had indulged Rouge by letting her drag him to a small gathering.
That was enough to tip something over the edge and pull a raw shout of anger from him, an action that drew his attention to the fact that he’d been gripping his quills tightly. He gave them a light tug, which eased the knot of tension that had formed in his chest but started a cascade of other actions. Shadow dug his claws into his palms, let himself shout until his voice was hoarse, and punched the tree again and again and again, feeling the reverberations through the branch he was seated on. He panted, tasting salt and blood, that tight ball of compartmentalized emotions slowly disintegrating.
As he wiped at his face, clearing the tears that he’d barely noticed, he spotted a flash of blue in his periphery, speeding away. That– how many times was this going to happen?!
Shadow blinked away his remaining tears, snapping himself back to the ground before giving chase. That blue idiot could not get away without consequences, the nosy little fucker needed to learn to leave Shadow alone for once. Shadow cut through the dense foliage, his shoes sizzling as they hit numerous puddles, teleporting around trees as he kept blue fur in his line of sight. He was gaining, Sonic’s clear inexperience with this sort of terrain becoming more obvious with every tree root he stumbled over.
When Shadow was within earshot, he shouted, “I’m going to kill you for that, hedgehog!” The threat caught in his throat on the last syllable, and he let out a cough, voice still raw.
Sonic glanced back, eyes sparkling despite the uncomfortable way his ears were pinned back. “Gotta catch me first!”
Shadow growled, directing more energy to his shoes as Sonic sped up. He was getting closer with every stutter of Sonic’s pace over the uneven terrain, all he needed to do was keep up for a few more seconds. He spotted his chance, ramming into Sonic as the other hedgehog risked a glance back at him and tripped over a root.
The thick detritus of the forest floor cushioned their fall, though Sonic still let out a quiet noise as Shadow pinned him. The blue hedgehog at least had the decency to look nervous, ears flicking toward every noise around them while his eyes darted from Shadow’s face to the trees around them and back again. Shadow glared down at him, making sure that his hold was solid despite Sonic’s uncharacteristic lack of a struggle. He wouldn’t put it past him to wait until Shadow’s guard was down to bolt. He’d done it before, during one of their more vicious spars, and Shadow wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Sonic finally met his eyes, and Shadow braced himself for the inevitable string of nonsense that was about to spew from his mouth. “So… you come here often?”
Shadow didn’t even dignify him with a response, growling as he dug his claws into Sonic’s wrists, feeling a small spark of satisfaction at Sonic’s responding wince. “Give me-” Shadow let out a wet cough, cursing at himself for all the yelling he’d done earlier, and continued hoarsely. “Give me one good reason to not pulverize you into a blue paste and throw you to the piranhas.”
“I’m a pleasure to be around and you’d miss me?”
“Try again.” Shadow dug his claws in deeper, let himself lean into the rage. Sonic was one of the few that wouldn’t question it, since he made a hobby out of pissing people off and seemed to get a rush from getting Shadow’s mask to slip.
“I won’t tell anyone, Shads, promise. You can even beat me up for it! I wasn’t trying to catch you or anything, Tails detected a chaos emerald down here and he just dropped me off a couple hours ago.” Sonic glanced away, eyes wandering the forest again as his expression slipped into a frown. Shadow kept glaring down at him, trying to dissect his expressions and determine if this was true honesty, or if Sonic was faking it. He wasn’t the type, generally, but…
It had been hard to trust anyone at their word, after everything. After having his mind tugged toward the Black Arms hivemind, after Robotnik had taken advantage of the gaps in his memory and tried to recruit him once again, after he’d had to work around a military organization that called him an ally but whose leader wanted him dead. Shadow blinked hard against the sudden stinging at the backs of his eyes, emotions still heightened from the controlled explosion from earlier.
He was dragged from his thoughts when Sonic looked up at him again, eyes wide, asking, “Dude, are you crying?”
Shadow released his grip from one of Sonic’s wrists to scrub at his face, his cheeks burning. “If you tell anyone, I’ll–”
“Pulverize me into a blue paste and feed me to piranhas, I get it.” Sonic let out a chuckle, though it sounded unsure. “But are you, like, okay?”
Shadow let his arm drop down, muttering, “I would be okay if a certain blue idiot hadn’t gone sniffing around where he didn’t belong.”
Sonic raised his free hand in an attempt at a placating gesture. “I get it, I get it. I’ll leave if you want, just let me up.”
“No,” Shadow replied, startling himself. Sonic looked just as surprised, ears perking forward for the first time since Shadow had caught him.
“Huh?”
Shit. Shadow needed to redirect. “You need to tell me why you’re after the chaos emeralds again. What is Robotnik planning?”
“We aren’t quite sure yet. He ran off to a space station again, but he’s been quiet the past month. No threats, no robots sent to kill me, nothing.” Sonic scratched behind his ear, drawing Shadow’s focus. Was it... purple? No, that was likely just the dim light of the rising sun distorting the color.
“How many do you have so far?”
“Just three. Hopefully the fourth is hiding close to here, otherwise Tails’ little gizmo definitely needs some work, ‘cause he always sets it to ignore the green one. You’ve got that one, so that’s five.”
“Rouge also has one. I can’t guarantee that she’ll give it to you without significant cost, though.” Shadow tried to push away the surprise within him at Sonic’s correct guess. Was he that predictable?
Sonic laughed, and Shadow’s ears perked forward, unbidden, to catch more of the sound. “Sounds like her. You’ll give us yours once we’ve got the other six, though, right?”
Shadow nodded. “Just don’t be stupid. If the doctor isn’t trying to stop you, he likely has some plan to steal the emeralds and let you do his dirty work.”
“’Course he does. Tails is keeping a close eye on him, we’ll know if he’s gonna try anything.”
Shadow just hummed in lieu of a reply, releasing his halfhearted grip on Sonic’s other wrist and rising to his feet. Sonic popped up next to him, hand coming up to Shadow’s shoulder before a sidelong glance stopped him. Shadow crossed his arms tight over his chest, the dig of his claws into his forearms settling something unnameable that was buzzing in his brain. “And if you tell anyone–“
“Chaos, Shadow, I get it. Why are you so convinced I’ll tell people, anyway?”
“Please, it’s obvious that you love picking at weaknesses in your rivals for your own amusement.”
Sonic’s ears drooped, so subtly that Shadow barely caught it. “Only about shit that doesn’t matter. C’mon, Shads, I thought you knew me better than that.”
And that… Shadow reflected for a moment. Did he know Sonic? His memory was nearly fully restored again, barring a few gaps toward the beginning of his life that may never return. He knew startling little about the blue hedgehog, especially since he always deflected questions about anything that got too personal. In contrast, it felt like Sonic was always discovering things from Shadow’s past that he’d rather keep contained to his own head.
So, Shadow answered the unspoken question honestly. “I don’t know you at all. It’s an easy assumption to make.”
Sonic’s muzzle scrunched up at that, emotions flicking across his face too quickly for Shadow to even attempt to decipher them. He eventually settled on a lazy grin, the fake one (since when had Shadow been able to tell?), and said, voice somewhat strained, “Well, I should get going! Gotta find that emerald and take down Egghead, peace!”
With a flash of blue and a loud boom, Sonic disappeared. Shadow couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d said something terribly wrong without realizing.