Chapter Text
"What are you doing right now?"
Stone stared at Henry for his abrupt question before glancing down at his register. "I presumed I was going to put in your order for a large mocha," he said, "but your words are making me second guess myself."
"Everything okay?" Shadow asked the other man. The hedgehog had grabbed the can of whipped cream for Henry's usual drink as soon as Henry had appeared, but Shadow picked up that Henry was nearly out of breath after reaching the front of the line.
"Oh, oh yeah, totally, little dude," Henry said, his gaze going back and forth between Stone and Shadow. "Heh, sorry, didn't mean to startle either of you. I got word for a house that's going to go on the market in, like, an hour and I want you two to be the first to see it."
Shadow's ears perked up, something Stone only noticed from his peripheral vision, but Stone glanced around at the not-empty café. The first of November brought plenty of patrons eager for caffeine to help stave off their late Halloween parties, chocolate hangovers, and the bite of even colder weather.
Henry seemed to understand, for he also looked around and immediately turned sheepish. "I may have gotten a little too excited..."
"I appreciate it, though," Stone said, "but perhaps when we close this afternoon? Can we schedule a tour for then?"
"Absolutely." Henry took out one of his business cards and scribbled an address on the back of it. "And, of course, I'll have my large mocha. Gotta take it to-go today."
Stone thanked Henry again and their usual routine settled over them. Shadow perfected the spiral of whipped cream on top of the mocha and lamented that the coffee cup's lid needed to ruin it. Henry agreed and promised that he would stop in to drink his mochas more often in the café soon enough, but work was calling.
Only when there was a pause in the line of customers did Shadow ask Stone, "What's the address?"
Stone rattled it off, trying to picture where it was in comparison to Main Street. "I think it's only a few streets over."
"It is," Shadow said, and he sounded so sure that Stone didn't question it. He didn't really have the time to, for they became steadily busy in the café through most of the mid-morning to the afternoon.
Yet, despite the activity, it seemed that the clock slowed down the closer it got to the afternoon closing time.
"Only about a half hour," Stone said to Shadow, unable to keep himself from smirking. The hedgehog was nearly vibrating, either in nerves or excitement from the idea of seeing the house. Henry had showed the pair a few houses already, of course, but Stone couldn't recall Henry being as enthusiastic about any of the other places as he was about this particular one.
Stone handed Shadow the broom. "Use some of your energy to sweep up."
Shadow's eyes narrowed, unimpressed with the chore, and darted around the floor and any unsuspecting patrons so quickly that he was back beside Stone in the span of a heartbeat.
"You were supposed to take your time," Stone chided lightly. "It's still only about a half hour until we close."
Shadow rolled his eyes and retreated to the back room. Stone heard the sink they had back there turn on, figuring that Shadow opted to wash whatever dishes that had piled up to try to whittle away the time. Stone chuckled and occupied himself with wiping down the counter, marveling at how impatient Shadow could be at times.
Perhaps it was a side effect of having superspeed.
The very second the clock turned to the time to close, a black whirlwind went from the back room to the front of the store. Stone heard more so than saw the front door lock with a click and the window sign flipping from "Open" to "Closed" before Shadow was back by his side behind the counter.
Shadow's foot tapping reminded Stone way too much of Sonic, and Shadow barely suppressed a grown when Stone casually reminded him that, "We have to let the last of the people out."
Indeed, there were a few very confused customers standing at the door, wondering why they were locked in.
Once the last of the patrons were freed and Stone switched his Mean Bean apron for his coat, Shadow teleported the pair to the end of the street that was listed on the address and didn't apologize when Stone asked why Shadow didn't warn him he was going to do that.
"Did you two walk here?" Henry sounded baffled when he shouted to the pair once he spotted them down the street. He glanced at his watch and, when Stone and Shadow caught up, added, "You made awesome timing."
"We teleported," Shadow said, and Stone realized that the hedgehog was actively trying to suppress his shivers. He was thankful they had finally ordered Shadow a coat.
"Sounds like a fantastic way to travel," Henry said. Without any further prompting, he gestured to the house right in front of him with a flourish. "Ta-da!"
The house was a ranch style, nestled just far enough back from the sidewalk to have a decently-sized front yard for some garden beds and a short pathway to the mailbox. There was a fence that could use some repairs stretching from the one side of the house to wrap around the backyard, ending at the back end of the driveway, granting a good amount of privacy.
Henry began rattling off some of the house's details, that was it was built in the 1950s with the siding and some of the foundation having been updated in the 1990s. He had a few inspectors on the real estate firm's payroll that Stone would look into, but he did trust Henry when the other man said that the house was kept in good shape by the previous owner.
"He was an old guy," Henry said, speaking of the previous owner as the three walked towards the front door. "He actually had this house built right after he got married. I didn't know them too well, but haven't heard a bad thing about them. The wife had passed away a couple of years ago and the husband is getting up there in years. The couple had one kid, who is actually helping to orchestrate the sale while also getting her father settled into an assisted living facility closer to her home in Arizona."
Henry unlocked the front door, letting Stone and Shadow enter first, and Stone ushered the hedgehog in before him. He didn't miss when Shadow rubbed his arms to ward off the outside's chill, even if Shadow himself didn't realize it with how focused he was on the house's interior.
They were standing in a moderate living room, an old recliner smack in the middle of the floor and facing the wall. Stone presumed there used to be a television hanging up on the wall, perhaps with framed pictures here and there if one considered how the wallpaper was faded in most spots with a few rectangle-shaped exceptions.
The right-side of the house gave way to a kitchen with mostly updated appliances and room for a decent-sized dining table. Henry mentioned that there were stairs in the back by the door to the yard that led down to an unfinished basement, but Stone was watching how Shadow poke his head down towards the left side of the house, the long hallway leading towards a couple of bedrooms and the bathroom.
Henry laughed quietly at Shadow going his own way, and mentioned to Stone, "Let's start down there," before following the hedgehog.
"Here's the one full bathroom," Henry said, pointing it out. "It's a little small, but obviously functional. The tub was switched out to the walk-in shower about five years ago, but a standard tub can be fitted again in the space if you want. All the pipes were replaced at the same time, so you won't have to worry about the plumbing."
The bathroom was a bit old-fashioned, the modern walk-in shower looking almost comically out of place. The tiles of the shower matched the general colors of the rest of the bathroom's paint and decor in an attempt to make it blend in, but it didn't quite work. At the very least, Stone was confident he could work with it.
Shadow almost bypassed the bathroom entirely, evidently not too interested in the room until Henry mentioned the walk-in shower itself. The hedgehog squeezed himself in between Stone and Henry to wander closer to the shower stall, staring in a small amount of bewilderment at the knobs that controlled the multiple jet streams. The knobs were a little out of reach for the hedgehog, so that was one modification they would need to fix. Considering how long Shadow takes in the shower, Stone probably wouldn't have minded a second bathroom but maybe that was something they could add down the line.
"There are technically three bedrooms," Henry said, moving on with the tour. "If you wanted to expand the bathroom, you could probably take a bite out of the bedroom next door, but that bedroom is considered the master bedroom with the space."
The trio went to look into the bedroom, a full-sized mattress and box spring still in there as well as an old mahogany dresser. Shadow indulged his curiosity and began to open the drawers to inspect them.
"Does the previous owner want the handful of furniture that's still here?" Stone asked.
"No," Henry said. He paused then amended, "Well, I'm pretty sure the old man would have loved to bring his recliner, but don't think it fit in his new place. The daughter assured me that they took all they wanted and needed. Anything left behind is up for grabs, either for the new homeowners or the dump."
A bit of a shame, really. Stone watched as Shadow used the bottom drawers as steps to reach the top ones to look inside, and figured he could give the dresser a good cleaning to reuse it.
The rest of the room was a decent size, a little bigger than Stone's bedroom back at the apartment. He tried to picture where his current furniture would go, still feeling as if the room would look a little empty, and wasn't sure how to deal with the small ache it caused in his chest.
Shadow abandoned the dresser and moved to look out the window, it showcasing the backyard. His ears twitched as he listened to Henry point out the leftover flowerbeds that were by the perimeter of the fence, mentioning that the old guy used to be a gardener that sold his vegetables at the farmers market every weekend in the next town over.
Stone made his way over to them, seeing the flowerbeds disheveled and dreary from disuse and the cold.
He blinked, trying to find the potential in them, just as Shadow started asking Henry if he knew what kind of vegetables the man had grown. Henry mentioned tomatoes and cucumbers, only because he could recall his own mother boasting about the fresh vegetables whenever she made sandwiches with them.
Stone vaguely heard Henry chuckle and talk about how good of a deal she got, but he was pretty sure the old man always gave her a discount because she refused to take the vegetables for free.
"C'mon," Henry said, gesturing back out into the hallway. "Let's check out the other bedrooms."
The other rooms were fairly similar, but completely empty. The one at the very end of the hall was the smallest and Henry explained that the previous owner had used it as storage and his laundry room. Stone figured that wasn't a bad idea, particularly if the pipes and plumbing were already in place for such a thing.
"So..." Shadow stepped around Stone and Henry to dart into the last room. "This one would be my bedroom?"
"Well, that's between you two," Henry said, glancing at Stone with a crooked smile. "You guys could play rock, paper, scissors or arm wrestle to see who gets the biggest room."
Stone raised an eyebrow, hiding his own smile, when Shadow looked back at him to stare at his arms and seemingly considered Henry's words. Henry also noticed Shadow scrutinizing Stone's arms and didn't bother to hide his snort of amusement at all before moving on to show them the size of the closet and the window's view of the front yard.
Shadow stayed quiet as Henry talked about what kind of layouts they could do for the room, detailing that a twin-sized mattress would give more than enough room for Shadow to add all sorts of decorations and knick-knacks, but a full-sized mattress would still grant a decent amount of extra space. Shadow glanced back at Stone once during the ideas Henry spewed out, and Stone felt just as lost as Shadow looked.
Henry was speaking of decorations and personal items that Shadow did not have -- framed photos, favorite shoes, video game consoles that could be hooked up to the nonexistent television that may fit perfectly on the wall opposite of the window. Stone didn't even have much of the presumably typical homeowner's things that Henry was rattling off.
Henry was smooth with his descriptions, but maybe realized that he wasn't getting much of a reaction from Shadow before sweeping around the room and ushering them back out into hallway. He led them back through the living room and into the kitchen, speaking of how a six-person dining table used to sit by the wall opposite of the kitchen appliances. The countertops lined the back wall of the room, leaving plenty of space for cooking and moving about the place.
The linoleum floor would need to be replaced. Stone was sure the surface had been cleaned recently, but it was superficial at best. The oven was the oldest appliance, functional according to Henry, but the previous homeowner opted to replace the refrigerator to boost the house's value rather than the stove as "he used that more than the oven. Don't think he cooked too much during his last few years living here."
Henry gave the pair a quick look in the basement, the unfinished space not much to boast about, but Henry spoke about its potential. All Stone saw was more money being sunk into the house repairs.
Shadow didn't even venture all the way down the stairs. Too dark, too cramped, too similar to bad memories, Stone was sure.
"The yard is better," Henry admitted, and he let Shadow go outside ahead of him once they got back up the stairs and to the door.
There was a small patio of concrete down the three outdoor steps that led into the yard, and Henry said something about how there was enough room for a standing grill and maybe even a picnic table. The rest of the yard was flat land, grass browning from the cold and valiantly trying to face whatever sun they could find amid the pockets of snow that were blanketing them.
Shadow's arms wrapped around himself again even as he stalked the perimeter of the fence, pausing occasionally at the old garden beds all the way on the other end of the yard. There was a tiny shed nestled in one corner, and Stone imagined that the previous owner kept all of his gardening tools safe from the weather in the structure.
As Shadow went closer to the shed itself, Henry snagged Stone's attention and, with a grin, said, "So? What do you think?"
The house was nice, the best for them that they've looked at so far, in fact. Stone could admit that and wanted to share in Henry's enthusiasm, but there was something that was holding Stone back. It was if he was tethered to something, yanking on a rope, but he wasn't sure what.
Stone looked back at Henry, trying to figure out something to say, and lost it in the wake of Henry's perplexed expression from Stone’s silence.
However, after a moment, Henry's furrowed brows smoothed over, his confusion morphing into understanding. Quietly, he said, "It's a big change."
Stone could only nod.
"The little dude and you have had a lot of big changes lately," Henry continued. "A house is more permanent than an apartment. It's a bold declaration that tells the world you're moving on to the next chapter of your life... but it's one thing to let the world know and another to be ready to turn the page yourself."
Stone swallowed hard.
The Mean Bean wasn't going anywhere. The only difference was that there would be a few minutes of a commute, and he would be splitting his time between the café's building and his new house. The interruption to their routine wouldn't be much, but it would be an interruption nonetheless. Shadow and he would get used to it eventually, and moving to a place with more space was supposed to be a good thing.
...But then they'd also have to get used to the added change of Shadow starting school in just a couple of months. The ache in Stone's chest grew.
He used to pride himself on his ability to adapt to changes. Why did it feel difficult to do so now?
Stone did remember to say, "Thank you, Henry. This house is great, I want you to know that. I appreciate that you're thinking of Shadow and me so much whenever a new place becomes available."
Henry nodded, his smile still understanding. "It is below your budget," he ventured to say, "so you'd have more cushion for anything you'd want to fix and change before moving in.
"I wouldn't want you to make a rushed decision," Henry continued, "but this place is ripe for a contractor to scoop up. I'd rather it go to a well-deserving family than see it be knocked down and flipped just for profit."
Stone took a deep breath, the chilled air sharp in his lungs, and he called out to Shadow to come back inside.
"Thank you again," Stone said as the three moved back through the house to head to the front door.
"No problem," Henry said. "Think about it, call or text me with any questions, and let me know whatever you decide."
Shadow thanked Henry as well, humoring the man when he went in for a fist bump, and they said goodbye before Shadow warned Stone that he was teleporting them back home.
Home. To the apartment.