Work Text:
Flowers are not as common as they once were, but they aren’t so rare that the sight of them is remarkable. There’s something about these, though, these colourful weeds pushing through the cracks in the dusty street, that makes Shadow pause.
He crouches to inspect them further. By his side, heavy metal footsteps slow to a halt.
The petals are a pretty blue, with a slight hint of green. They evoke a vision of heavy-lidded teal eyes, fluttering eyelashes and sharp eyeliner wings. A gaze he had met so many times that it was, once, as common a sight as his own reflection.
He still sees himself in every reflective surface, visually unchanged, but he’ll never see those eyes again.
“Look,” he finds himself pointing to them before he can control himself. “Those flowers. They’re like her eyes.” He doesn’t need to say who.
Omega’s head turns, the aperture of his optics widening and narrowing as he focuses in on the flowers. Something whirrs.
(He’s always whirring or rattling or creaking these days. Shadow could swear he used to be quieter. Perhaps robots get old after all.)
“THE COLOUR IS SIMILAR, BUT IT IS NOT THE SAME,” he announces. “THE DOMINANT SHADE OF THE PETALS IS: #26D9D9. THE DOMINANT SHADE OF ROUGE’S IRISES WAS: #22BFBF.”
Shadow inhales sharply and stands upright, scowling. He doesn’t know what he wanted to hear- what he could have possibly expected from Omega- but it wasn’t that. “Well,” he mutters scathingly, “not all of us can colour pick from our damn memories.”
It makes him worry, though, if they really aren’t a similar colour to Rouge’s eyes at all. Maybe he’s forgetting. He can conjure an image in his mind easily enough, but there’s no telling if his memory has distorted it. What if, every time he tried to recall the exact shade of Rouge’s irises, he gets it a little more wrong each time?
It’s not like he can check to be certain. Pictures aren’t always reliable. Screens can be calibrated incorrectly, files can decrease in quality, and ink can never recreate the depth of a real subject no matter how they are mixed and layered.
(He can barely visualise Maria anymore. All he can evoke is a blur of blue and yellow, the melodic tinkle of a laugh and the specific way she said the word ‘grandfather’.)
He closes his eyes and pushes his fingers hard against his eyelids, forcing his attention to the dull ache and the splotches in his vision.
“CEASE. YOU WILL HARM YOUR EYES IF YOU CONTINUE.”
“Too bad,” he mumbles.
“YOUR EYES CANNOT BE REPLACED.”
“I know.”
“CEASE!”
He should have let a passing thought be a passing thought. It didn’t need to be vocalised, and it certainly didn’t need to be vocalised to the only person he knows who could make him feel worse about it.
(Because Omega also only person who could understand. Because he’s the only other person alive who knew Rouge, really knew her. And because he’s so emotionally constipated that sometimes Shadow wonders if he’s really capable of emotion after all— if he ever has been, or if Shadow has spent all of these years seeing something in him that isn’t really there.)
He acquiesces, removing his hands from his eyes and crossing his arms firmly around his torso. “We should get moving,” he says, like he isn’t the one who stopped them in their path to look at a damn flower.
-
The awkward thing is that Rouge was both of their favourite.
They both know this and there aren’t any hard feelings. It was most logical to prefer Rouge—she was the reason they didn’t destroy each other from the beginning, the reason they had a home, the one nudging them to find life purposes beyond what was given to them and grow their own roots. Not to mention that she was, usually, the most pleasant to be around of the trio.
It made her absence, the unearthing of those roots, strange for a long time.
After her passing, Shadow wondered if he and Omega were going to part ways. They clashed as much as they were compatible and it was difficult to tell if there was any reason to keep sticking together when the glue was gone.
They didn’t part ways. He’s still unsure of to what extent it was because they truly wanted each other’s companionship and to what extent it was because they had made a habit of being around each other.
Perhaps that’s what life partners are, when it comes down to it. Habits that you never feel the need to break.
-
A line of security bots have assembled at the entrance of the facility. Shadow instinctively averts his eyes; he’s never been able to look straight at them, not even now that they look completely different to the earlier models. Their bodies are longer and narrower than the first ones, probably in an attempt to distinguish them from the round, squat Eggman bots that linger in collective memory.
(They use the same tech as Eggman’s old robots and sometimes even the same materials. Once, one was found with a faded Eggman logo on the base. The agency said that they’ll never source their materials from Eggman tech again, which really just means that they’ll be more careful about hiding it in the future.)
He hates those damn bots. Personal grievances aside, the last thing people need after decades of robot invasions is a different breed of robot everywhere, tracking people with their cameras and microphones.
That’s not the reason he can’t look at them, though.
Back in the day, their use was implemented in high security locations before a full risk assessment had been completed, leading to multiple casualties from unanticipated explosions.
One casualty was Rouge. Her body was found in a nest of rubble, dusty and broken, wrapped tightly around a jewel the size of her skull.
Both Shadow and Omega had been telling her for months that she shouldn’t be doing such risky operations anymore, not after her wings had grown weaker and she couldn’t escape as quickly as she once could. She always got mad when they brought it up, insisting that she wasn’t too old for espionage yet.
In the end, it hadn’t mattered. The blast zone had been large enough that she never would have escaped in time, even if her wings had been in their prime. At least she died doing what she loved—cradling a jewel that wasn’t rightfully hers.
Now it’ll be hers forever. By the time she was found, they couldn’t have extracted it from her grip without breaking some fingers, and her teammates were quick to threaten anyone who suggested to do so. It was buried with her.
Some archivists were really mad about it. Justifiably so, really, but their opinions don’t matter.
-
Omega does most of his repair work himself. He shouldn’t have to, but the only other person alive he’d trust to do repairs is too afraid to.
It’s a sore spot, an embarrassment. Shadow knows, in theory, what every part of Omega does. He can name and identify every part of his inner workings and the ways that they connect together.
But he cannot bring himself to touch them. Every time he tries to, he can’t get any further than opening up Omega’s chest cavity before the sight of wires, formations like organs, paralyzes him with the fear of making a deadly mistake. His hands begin to shake and he can’t be of any use without steady hands, so he leaves Omega to sort things out himself.
He knows that it’s unlikely that he’d cause any lasting damage, even if he were to fuck up. It isn’t impossible, though.
When someone is all one has, they become their everything; he cannot stand the thought of losing everything, especially at his own hands. Not again.
-
“OBSERVATION: YOU ARE DISTRACTED.”
Shadow isn’t in the mood to talk anymore and would greatly appreciate it if Omega spent the next few decades in silence. He grunts noncommittally.
Omega’s always been shit at knowing when to shut up. “YOU CAN RETURN TO CAMP IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO ACCOMPANY ME TO THE WAREHOUSE.”
Shadow isn’t sure he wants to accompany Omega anywhere anymore. He refrains from saying so aloud, but only barely.
They continue walking past the security bots in silence until Omega opens his metaphorical mouth again. “ALTERNATIVELY: WE COULD—“
“Would it kill you to say it for once?” He snarls, something within him ripping apart. “For fuck’s sake, just say it. Say that you miss her.” He has stopped walking and glares up at his companion, his breaths harsh and ragged with burning rage.
He knows he’s being unfair. He knows that saying these things doesn’t come naturally to Omega, and usually he’d respect that enough to refrain from forcing him to but he needs urgently to feel like he’s not alone in this. That there really is someone who understands. That her absence weighs as much on someone else as it does on him.
Omega turns his head away. The twin lights from his optics reflect on the decaying brick wall. “MAKING SUCH STATEMENTS IS UNNECESSARY.”
Shadow wants to pull his fur out. He envisions himself ripping it out in tufts until there’s nothing left but the raw skin that was hidden underneath. “Just because something has no practical use doesn’t mean it’s unnecessary.”
“THERE IS NO USE IN DWELLING ON THE PAST.” It’s just a rephrasing of what he already said, like he thinks that Shadow just doesn’t understand.
“Grieving isn’t logical,” he insists.
“AFFIRMATIVE.”
“Just…” He takes a long breath, feeling the fight seep out of his body. In its place is a familiar heaviness, accompanied with the humiliation of having behaved so emotionally. He doesn’t usually have outbursts like this anymore. “I wish you’d say it every once in a while.”
“YOU INSIST ON FOCUSING ON YOUR GRIEF. YOU DO NOT PRIORITIZE THE PRESENT.”
Easy for Omega to say. Everything about this is so much easier for him and it pisses Shadow off to no end. Omega can manually drag memories and uncomfortable thought processes into encrypted folders and only visit them when it’s convenient to do so—if he even visits them at all.
Sometimes, Shadow wishes he’d turned out to be an android after all. It would have been upsetting at first, but he’d have gotten over it. He can only imagine how much he’d be able to get done if he could compartmentalise everything into folders and lock them away.
And, like Omega, he’d probably still be as physically capable as he always has been. He wouldn’t have an organic body that breaks down a little more each decade as Chaos energy erodes it from the inside. He wouldn’t have a useless arsenal of abilities that he can’t even use anymore because they’ve grown too dangerous and unpredictable, both for himself and for others.
“Yeah, well, grieving’s all I’m good at anymore.”
If he thinks about it- and he thinks about it a lot- grieving was all he ever did, even when he was in peak physical condition. Everything he ever did was dictated by what he thought a dead little girl would have wanted him to do. Every act of good was done for Maria.
He’s pointed this out before, but Omega disagrees. As did Rouge. They said that he did good because he was good (‘which is annoying, you should stop that’, Rouge would say) but he’s never been so sure about that.
“ON THE CONTRARY—”
“Shut it.”
Omega shuts it, for once in his damn life.
-
He appreciates Omega- of course he does- but he misses the warmth, the soft touch of other organic lifeforms.
He’s not much of a hugger and neither was Rouge, but sometimes—
Her skin was always so smooth. Her fur grew sparse and she preferred to shave, and she moisturised her skin with thick, sweet-smelling lotions every time she took a bath. Occasionally, he’d bury his face into her shoulder and take long, grounding inhales. After she passed, he opened all of her lotions and lay in her bed, smelling each of them and imagining her warm shoulders pressing into his face.
Omega is hard and cold and smells like metal. It wouldn’t be the same even if physical contact came naturally to them, which it doesn’t. Sometimes he sits on Omega’s shoulder and leans on his sturdy head, tracing the lines and divets with his finger, but it isn’t the same. There’s no heartbeat like his own.
He wonders, sometimes, when Silver will show up. He’s forgotten how many years there were between Silver’s future (the present?) and what was once the present (which is now the past.)
Inevitably, they’ll cross paths at some point. He isn’t sure how he’ll react; his relief at seeing a familiar face may cause him to behave uncharacteristically. He can’t be certain that he won’t cry. It might be alarming for Silver, especially if he’s already encountered Shadow’s past self who does not yet know how privileged he is to be surrounded by people that care for him.
Nothing could ever replace Rouge, but he will appreciate the company of another Mobian until Silver, too, dies, as all mortals do.
-
The warehouse- he doesn’t care enough to remember the name, since they encounter so many of them on their travels- has an unusually extensive collection of old Eggman tech.
It’s frowned upon for the public to have or use technology similar to the old Eggman models and there isn’t anything resembling E-series models being made anymore. They have to either locate facilities like this one in the hopes that they’ll have the necessary materials and sell them for reasonable prices, or scrounge for old parts in junkyards full of century-old waste and the occasional corpse.
(Therefore, it’s more important than ever to ensure that severe damage does come Omega’s way, no matter how much he may protest. If something breaks, there’s always a chance that it cannot be replaced.)
Omega recites a long and very specific list of parts and the service bot is able to provide them with about half. They pay the bot, fill Shadow’s ratty knapsack, and leave swiftly.
On the way back to the camp they’ve been at for the past few weeks, they once again encounter the teal flowers— Shadow averts his eyes from them the same way that he avoids looking at the security bots.
“SHE IS GONE,” Omega says abruptly, having also noticed the flowers, “BUT I AM HERE.”
If Shadow didn’t know him as well as he knew himself, he’d snarkily congratulate him for stating the obvious, but he knows what Omega means. He knows what he’s saying, even though he isn’t saying it.
“I CANNOT BE DAMAGED IN A WAY THAT MATTERS. EVERY PART OF MY BODY CAN BE REPLACED.” Theoretically. For now. “I WILL BE BY YOUR SIDE FOR AS LONG AS YOU ARE BY MINE.” He pauses. “HOWEVER: IF YOU CEASE OUR ALLYSHIP AT ANY TIME, I WILL HAVE TO KILL YOU. IT IS NOT PERSONAL. YOU KNOW TOO MUCH.”
Shadow knows this. Sometimes he considers turning on Omega, or at least pretending to, for that very reason. But that’s the coward’s way out and it wouldn’t be fair on Omega.
“Same to you,” he says.
And maybe Omega considers the coward’s way out, too. The aimlessness of inhabiting a post-Eggman world takes a toll on him, no matter how well he may think he hides it.
(The old fuck died of a stroke— it hadn’t even been by his hands. Omega was inconsolably furious for months and hasn’t been the same since.)
“ADDITIONALLY: I HAVE A CONFESSION TO MAKE.”
“A confession?”
Omega pops open his chest cavity and rummages around inside himself. It makes Shadow feel nauseous to watch him do this, but he keeps his expression steady as Omega carefully combs through a disorganized clump of wires until he finds the one he’s looking for.
He gives it a little tug so that it extends, and Shadow can observe that it has clearly seen better days. The plastic covering is mostly gone and it appears to have snapped and been soldered back together in several places.
“I DO NOT ALLOW THIS BE REPLACED,” Omega says, before tucking it back in with the rest.
“Why not? They’re still easy to come by.”
“A WEEK BEFORE HER FINAL HEIST, THE OLD CONNECTOR HAD BROKEN AND TAILS WAS UNAVAILABLE SO SHE INSTALLED IT HERSELF. A PIECE OF HER HANDIWORK IS A PART OF ME AND I INTEND TO KEEP IT FOR AS LONG AS IS FEASIBLE.” He snaps his chest plate back into place.
Omega has never mentioned any of this before.
Shadow takes long, deep breaths. It’s the same kind of breathing he did on the ARK to get through the painful, torture-adjacent procedures, and, coincidentally, the same type of breathing that his therapist- back when he had one, all those years ago- encouraged him to use to ground himself.
He feels guilty for having doubted Omega’s ability to feel emotions. Of course he grieves, in his own way. He shouldn’t have had to hold out his innards for Shadow to know that.
When he speaks, his voice wobbles. “It’s a good job the last thing she replaced wasn’t a claw, ‘cause those break all the damn time.”
The attempt at deflection is ignored. “I AM NOT UNAFFECTED BY ROUGE’S DEATH. IT IS IMPORTANT TO ME THAT YOU UNDERSTAND THIS. DWELLING ON THE PAST IS A WASTE OF TIME, BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN I DO NOT REMEMBER.”
The worst thing that Shadow could do right now is cry. It’ll make Omega uncomfortable. He keeps breathing. “I understand,” he says.
Omega observes him for a moment. “QUERY: WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO CARRY YOU THE REST OF THE WAY?”
He isn’t physically tired yet. He nods. Large metal claws scoop him up and deposit him, with uncharacteristic gentleness, on Omega’s shoulder.
He leans to the side, resting against Omega’s head. His eyes begin to leak, so he closes them.