Chapter Text
Browsing grocery aisles was easy. Browsing was never the problem. Shadow, in theory, loved to stalk through the vegetable rows, watching the legumes get misted, loved to prowl through the spice racks, to let the gentle perfume drift by him. The problem was the people. It was the loud children tugging at ankles, begging for Hot Wheels, and coughing on produce. It was the tittering grandmas and the rotund uncles who looked down their noses at his eyeliner, the leather slung over his shoulders, or his earrings as subtly as they could manage.
It was the cold, investigative attention that made his ears press to his skull, made him remember what it felt like to be pinned under his grandfather’s gaze, to tell him that yes, he did want to change his major to Film, that he was willing to risk making a huge mistake, a gigantic one, to stray from his path, the pipeline, diligent student to astrophysics major to working under Gerald himself. Rationally, he knew no one really gave a second thought to anything but their own lengthening grocery lists, to the mounting prices, to keeping their children from digging their saliva-coated canines into the corners of a cereal box, feeling the unforgiving cardboard slide over the sensitive gap of gum where a tooth used to be.
Shadow, of course, Ultimate Lifeform that he was, heard most of everything, all the bickering, all the debates over whether canned corn was really GMOed or not, but worst of all, he smelled everything. The hedgehog nearly fell to his knees when a green rabbit sauntered past him, the reek of Axe body spray hitting him straight in the face, making him wheel around, bewilderment etched across his sharp features. How the rabbit hadn’t passed out from the fumes alone was beyond him.
He’d nosed his fair share of obnoxious cologne walking past the frat houses of UMSS (University of Mobius, Station Square), but he had thankfully been safe from it in his dorm. The suite style was fine enough for his privacy-loving sensibilities, with his room (if one could call it that) being blocked off, his bed and shitty Ikea bedside table safe from prying eyes. Technically, he shared a room, though a half-wall partitioned it, and that was just fine. Espio was a tolerable roommate overall. Tolerable enough that he still kept in contact, though it was the sort of contact similarly achieved through LinkedIn information exchange.
The real problem was the two in the room across from the small kitchenette and bathroom. The door, identical to the one fixed on Espio and Shadow’s room, was never enough of a barrier to block out the music, or the Mario Kart tournaments, or, worse, when the blue one needed to memorize his lines in time for his projects, lilting voice grating against Shadow’s woefully attuned ears. In his disdain, he never learned the nuisance’s name. An impressive feat, all things considered. If the situation truly required words, Shadow would just refer to him as Hedgehog. It got his point across just well enough. If the blue blur ran past Shadow on one of his midafternoon jogs, Shadow would scoff and bury his muzzle back into his tome, leaning onto whatever backrest he had, tree, bench, brick wall, or otherwise.
Shadow liked his classes, though, liked watching films and hashing over the elements that made them classics, what bolstered them as strokes of genius, or what hindered them from ever reaching depth. Delicatessen was a solid favorite of his. The Mobian always possessed a certain affinity for pretentious masterpieces. On his better days, he would call himself a pretentious masterpiece, though the sentiment wasn’t borne from any sort of appreciation. It was just a nickname for himself, a bitter reminder of what he was created and raised for. In a way, his rebellion was inevitable. He needed to find his own purpose eventually. Film was just the thing for him, a combination of everything he loved. Music, narrative, emotion, cinematography, dialogue, visual art, all in a controlled environment. An environment he could control, if he played his cards right. He planned on it. He might’ve been a gambler in another life. Shadow’s whole career was a gamble, truly. A successful one, for now.
Espio managed to land him this job, sure and true, though that was because the project needed someone with an eye for detail and thirst for control, and Espio had reportedly thought of only Shadow as the man for the job. He was grateful for the man, infinitely so. Gratitude wasn’t enough to keep the pessimism at bay. Shadow preferred to call it pragmatism, himself a realist. He was only distinguishable from an assistant by title. This gamble was why he was back in a grocery aisle, looking for hot dog buns and reminiscing about his university days after one whiff of instant ramen. This happened to him more often than he’d like, any familiar redolence sending him to childhood or the warm embrace of an old friend.
He sighed, tossed the buns into the basket, and glanced down at the grocery list, face twisting. Refried beans, maple baked beans, garbanzo beans, and salsa. Well, he wasn’t in a position to question authority. That was show business. Then again, it was three different canned bean variants. Shadow had felt less embarrassed the first time Maria asked him to grab pads from the pharmacy for her. He got over that embarrassment quickly. This just made him appear to have poor taste. Well, there was always the chance that it was for… set design. Props? Shadow sighed and grabbed a large bag of popcorn to cover his tracks, shielding the ingredients from view.
A swipe of the company credit card later, and he could safely step out through the sliding doors, light refracting off the tempered glass and making him squint. The early winter sun was an old egg yolk, a desaturated yellow sinking to the horizon. Tuesday, January sixth’s sun. His first day on the job. The sun was already sinking on his first day of the job. The first day on the job, the job he hadn’t had time to research. The sun was already setting before he had time to read the extensive project files, the storyboards, the scripts. Vector was going to show him the ropes, seeing as actors were getting stunt training. He was going to do just fine on his First Day On The Job.
He dropped the items in the passenger’s seat of his car, digging a hand through his pockets and jamming the key into the ignition. His car started his playlist where he left off, A Perfect Circle blaring through the speakers louder than he’d been prepared for. He resisted tearing his claws through his quills, knowing his gloved hands would create static and make his fur stand on end. First impressions were everything. The car took off, sputtering over the highway, and Shadow found himself grateful for the stall. He could’ve been on set just about twenty minutes sooner, but it took some time to steel himself.
It was just about 5:36 when he made it on set. Four minutes was plenty of time to find Vector’s office. After pulling into a parking lot and being all but interrogated by a guard, he slung the groceries over his shoulder and entered what looked like a repurposed warehouse flanked by actors’ trailers. Shadow shoved his fists as deep into his pockets as they could go and, glancing at his phone for Vector’s vague instructions, followed the narrow hallway down to a grey plywood door, knocking as politely as he could muster before poking his head inside. A rather tall crocodile jumped up from his computer, smiling jovially and shaking Shadow’s hand in two of his.
“You must be Vector.”
“So you’re Shadow, huh?” his lips quirked, and Shadow’s jaw clenched, quills momentarily puffing in a way that stemmed from the core of his spine out, but he let his quills flatten with a gentle clacking, reminding himself that the man wasn’t here to ridicule him.
“Yes, Sir,” Shadow nodded tersely, pulling himself to lock eyes with him, periodically glancing away in the way he learned made people less uncomfortable.
“Sit, sit,” Shadow dragged the chair facing the desk back, leaning against one armrest and folding his leg so one calf rested on his knee. After a few seconds passed and yielded no response from Shadow, Vector cleared his throat with only minimal amounts of awkwardness and continued.
“I’ve heard a lot about you from Espio. It took a lot to convince me, you know.”
Ignoring the subtle threat, Shadow pressed forward. “Good things, I hope.”
“Very.”
“When do I start?”
After a quick pause, Vector guffawed, slamming his palm on the desk. “Right now, if you’re up to it.”
“I am,” Shadow arched his brow, waiting to be challenged, deflating internally when none arrived.
“Good, good. Alright, the rooms are numbered. Dressing room’s 3, writers’ room is 16, the prop shop is 6, and stunt training’s out back. Anything else you need, and Breezie at the front desk’ll help you find it. Espio told me you pick things up fast.”
“Thank you, Vector.”
“I suggest you head out back. The actors are practicing a fight scene. They always need one thing or another,” Shadow nodded and turned to leave, glancing back to see Vector with headphones jammed over his ears and head bopping. He snorted quietly and did just as the crocodile had suggested, trudging over admittedly nice parking lot asphalt to padded grounds behind the warehouse where actors already milled about, training or taking deep draughts from water bottles. He lurked around the outskirts of the area, observing for a good minute before he was spotted by an echidna. A remarkably built echidna.
“You are?”
“Shadow,” he spoke gruffly, unsure whether to offer a hand in greeting or not, leaving them tense at his sides.
“Oh, yeah, Vector told me you might stop by.” The bright red echidna’s demeanor shifted slightly, pulling his metaphorical finger off the metaphorical trigger. The finger, in particular, would certainly only exist in the land of metaphor, seeing as bulky boxing gloves were constricting his hands.
“Good,” Shadow nodded curtly, at once remembering his manners and continuing. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Nah, just… hang around. The actors always want something or another.”
Another nod and a suppressed groan later, Shadow found himself leaning against the padded railing surrounding the training grounds, letting his back quills rest hooked over the bars so as not to snap the brittle keratin. Over his white leather gloves rested varyingly chunky rings that he tugged at to stave off the urge to reach for his phone. He didn’t mind mixed metals, thankfully, or he’d hate how the silver of his jewelry clashed with his inhibitor rings.
He was mulling over which colors made his fur look the least dull when he saw a flash of red. His first thought was that he drew the color from his imagination, seeing as he concluded that red was certainly flattering on him, but the thought was discarded because he wasn’t nearly tired enough to conjure anything hallucinatory at this hour. It was the echidna, then, coming to give him a task. He looked up from his rings and warmed himself to the idea of being helpful before he was met square in the face with a wave of blue. Glancing down again, there had certainly been red, in the form of subtly abrasive sneakers, and when he looked up again, his face froze, brows comically furrowed and mouth agape. A wave of blue stood before Shadow, a hill of ultramarine quills in the artfully disheveled silhouette of an avant-garde dry wildflower bouquet.
All at once, his heart sank in a caricatural rendition of dread, flailing marble-like in the pit of his stomach. He knew that face. He had, after all, put considerable energy into avoiding it.
“Hey, man, welcome on set, I’m Sonic,” and a hand was extended and wrapped around his as Shadow’s arm hung limply in the grasp of the blue hedgehog, again, of all places, and this had to be karmic retribution, but for what, he didn’t know, because he’d made considerable effort to be courteous this past year as per Maria’s request, and-
“You.”
“...Huh?”
“I know you.”
“You… do?” The handshake had been dropped sometime when Shadow yanked his hand back, and the blue hedgehog—it’s Sonic, his name is Sonic, and now his impressive no-name streak was over, done for, even, and he had the name for the face that was sure to garner his ire—took his hand back and squinted hard and tried to answer his own question.
“Oh, yeah, college, right? Man, you were such an asshole.”
Shadow righted himself, reeling from the abnormality. The reality of it was he absolutely fucking wasn’t. The asshole was the music-blasting, loud-laughing, midnight-line-reviewing, energy-drink-shotgunning erinaceid in front of him. His music was good, sure, Pearl Jam is always good, whatever, his acting was great, but it all grated just the same.
“What?” Shadow exhaled incredulously, half-formed politeness fleeing his frame, “I was the asshole? I-”
“No worries. If you want something to do, by the way, the costume department said they needed help.”
“I-” Shadow clenched his fists, nodded tersely, and stormed away, trying valiantly not to lose his job.