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Shadow was aware of Mobian hibernation cycles. He knew that certain species spent anywhere from a couple weeks to a few months sleeping through the coldest time of year. Having spent most of his life on the ARK, he wasn’t familiar with it personally, but he’d overheard Mobians preparing for it, talking about stocking up on food, even dreading the drowsiness that they knew would inevitably come.
Being a mostly-alien hybrid, Shadow could only assume that he didn’t have such a cycle. He’d never had anything like that in space; he hadn’t even known it was a thing until after he’d woken from stasis, as the scientists never thought that it was information he’d need to know.
Rouge told him to prepare, just in case, but he knew that he wouldn’t need to. Rouge’s particular species of bat didn’t hibernate either, so he’d at least have her company while most of their other friends went radio silent for the next few months (temporarily losing races with Sonic was a harsher blow than he thought it would be, not that he’d ever tell the blue hedgehog that).
The first few days after snow started falling was all the proof he needed against a potential hibernation cycle. What little drowsiness he’d felt in the last week was due to all of the work he’d done recently; he felt no strong effects that could be linked back to hibernation.
He continued to take missions, though he couldn’t help but notice the way he’d grow tired faster. Not fast enough to be a concern, but enough to be noticeable. He didn’t bother telling Rouge, knowing she’d just turn it into something it wasn’t. It hadn’t become an issue yet, so he ignored it.
In hindsight, it wasn’t his brightest moment.
He’d just gotten back to G.U.N. Headquarters from a solo mission when he noticed a growing drowsiness unlike anything he’d felt before. It wasn’t just the usual muscle soreness or fatigue that came from overworking himself; it was a bone-deep exhaustion that threatened to pull him under entirely against his will. He barely managed to last long enough to make it out of the building again.
It was during his run back home that the exhaustion became truly unbearable. He was slowing down, limbs growing stiff and sluggish. His eyes burned with the effort to stay open, and the cold air whipping past him, usually so easy to ignore, felt like needles pricking his skin all over.
It took him far longer than it should have to return to his apartment building. He slowed down as he made it to the sidewalk, but didn’t even make it to the door before his fatigue won.
His legs gave out from underneath him, and he collapsed onto the snowy concrete. He tried to push himself back up, but his shaking arms failed to support his weight.
The last thing he felt before unconsciousness took over was the freezing snow seeping into his fur.
***
“Shadow…” Rouge sighed, hands on her hips as she looked down at her unconscious roommate.
One of their neighbors, a nice human boy who was only a little terrified of his ‘immortal hedgehog’ and ‘murder robot’ neighbors, recognized Shadow and contacted Rouge immediately. As nice as he was, he was still too scared of Shadow to touch him, so he hadn’t thought to move Shadow inside, but he had, at the very least, made sure Shadow was still breathing. Rouge had warned him over the phone not to call an ambulance, knowing how poorly her roommate would react if he woke up inside one or, Gaia forbid, a hospital.
She didn’t know how long he’d been out here. Long enough for his cheeks to turn pale and his lips to turn blue. He wasn’t shivering, which she took as a bad sign.
She’d warned him over and over again for weeks to be careful when going out, but the ‘Ultimate Lifeform’ wasn’t going to let something like snow stop him from working himself into the ground. Ultimate idiot.
“You owe me for this, dumbass.” Rouge muttered under her breath, kneeling down to lift her roommate out of the snow. He was lucky she’d spent long enough carrying both him and Omega through the air to have gained a bit of muscle, otherwise she’d have been dragging him into the apartment by his feet. Served him right for acting so high and mighty.
She wanted to be pissed at him, she really did, but the moment she lifted him into her arms, he snuggled into her hold, instinctively leaning into the only source of warmth he had right now, and a very tiny part of her heart, reserved for all of the gross, sappy emotions she very adamantly refused to feel, absolutely shattered.
She sighed again, ignoring the discomfort of having a seventy-pound ice cube pressed to her chest as she walked through the front doors. If she was being completely honest, she didn’t actually expect Shadow to take care of himself throughout the winter, even if he had known that he was just as prone to hibernation as many other Mobians.
He didn’t know this, but she’d secretly gone out and prepared for him, buying extra blankets, heating pads, water bottles he could keep in his room, and his favorite foods. Getting him to wake up long enough to care for him would be even harder now than it would have been, since he’d now have to fight hypothermia on top of his already slowing metabolism. Next year, she was going to lock him in the apartment for the entire month leading up to his hibernation cycle.
“Gods, you’re lucky you’re cute.” Rouge grumbled. “I should drop you at Blue’s doorstep and make him and Tails deal with you for three months.”
***
Aching pain greeted Shadow when he awoke, followed by intense warmth that threatened to pull him back into sleep. He was surrounded by something soft and heavy, pressing down on him just enough that he couldn’t knock it off with his trembling arms.
Opening his eyes was more of a struggle than it should have been, like something was weighing down his eyelids. He made a soft noise in the back of his throat, alarm or frustration, he couldn’t really tell. Even his tongue felt too heavy to move.
“You awake, honey?”
With no small amount of effort, Shadow cracked one of his eyes open, catching a glimpse of Rouge’s blurry figure through his lashes. He closed it again in seconds, forcing out a brief hum to answer Rouge.
He felt her paw pet between his ears before readjusting whatever thing was covering him. Blankets, maybe. A ridiculous amount of blankets. He didn’t even own this many; some of them had to be hers.
“Do you remember what happened, Shadow?”
He hummed again, trying and failing to nod. He vaguely remembered feeling snow on his fur, and collapsing onto something hard. He couldn’t remember what happened before or after, and he didn’t have the energy to try.
He still felt a little cold, feeling it more prominently when he tried to move, but there was something underneath him, settled between the bed and his stomach, that was emitting warmth.
He heard a sigh from somewhere behind him, and that paw returned to his head. “I’ll wait until you’re a little more conscious to make fun of you. Get some rest, hon.”
The paw pulled away, and he whined unhappily without thinking. Rouge giggled at him in a way that might have embarrassed him if he could think straight. Right now, all he cared about was the way her paw immediately returned, petting his ears gently.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.” She said. “Someone’s gotta take care of you, grumpy.”
Shadow was asleep again before he could even think of responding.