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During those first few days after Rouge and Sonic broke Shadow out of that facility, all he could do was sleep. His body was so beyond broken that he didn’t even have the energy to drink water.
Sleep alone wasn’t enough to fix all of the damage his captors caused, and eating, as he’d learned quickly, was extremely difficult. His throat had been damaged so many times that the act of swallowing was painful, especially when he was attempting to swallow anything solid. It certainly didn’t help that he’d been dehydrated for so long he couldn’t even produce his own saliva at the moment. Sonic had suggested taking him to a hospital, but after what he’d just experienced, he’d rather suffer for a bit longer in the safety of his and Rouge’s apartment than be placed in another strange, too-sterile location filled with people he didn’t know and couldn’t trust. He’d heal eventually, he just needed time.
Another thing he’d discovered quickly was that he couldn’t speak at all. He couldn’t make a single sound, not even out of pain. Thankfully Rouge had known better than to take Shadow to a hospital, because Shadow himself never could have told Sonic.
After those first few days, when Shadow could finally manage to keep his eyes open for longer than a few minutes, he’d started eating again slowly, with Rouge’s assistance. Liquid meals were all he could handle at the moment, but it was still so much more than his captors had given him. It felt almost foreign, to have something filling his shriveled stomach again. He’d grown so used to the pain that it hadn’t even registered anymore, buried under the rest of the aches across his body.
He stayed hidden away in his room, tucked under his blankets, always shivering despite how warm he was now. Rouge came in occasionally to bring him food, and he always flinched when the door opened, automatically curling up tighter even though he knew that it wouldn’t save him.
It was easy to forget that he didn’t need to be saved anymore. He was already safe, freed from his cell, given space to rest somewhere he knew he wouldn’t be harmed. But he’d been trapped for so long, spending every moment in one form of agony or another, he couldn’t just stop feeling unsafe.
Everything about his current situation was… frustrating. He knew, realistically, that he was safe, that he was healing, but everything was happening so slowly. Before, he could have healed major injuries within hours, maybe days if it was bad enough. Now, just over a week after he’d been freed, he could barely move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even walk without Rouge’s assistance. He could only communicate through texts or writing, but his hands shook so badly that he couldn’t write at all, and his attempts at texting with her all ended in jumbled letters and silent sobbing, eyes burning but unable to produce tears.
He gave up on trying to communicate at all, instead waiting for Rouge to decide for him when he would eat and take one of the many supplements she’d been forcing him to take. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t scream, couldn’t even cry correctly anymore. All he could do was lie in his bed and wait until he healed enough to stop being… useless.
***
“Shads?”
Shadow glanced to his bedroom door, always left open just a crack. He assumed Rouge left it that way so she’d hear whenever Shadow tried moving around, but he never did. It made him uncomfortable, seeing it left open, knowing that an open door meant someone could come in quickly and take him away, but he couldn’t tell her that.
He couldn’t say anything to Sonic, either, meaning he was forced to say nothing as the blue hedgehog entered his bedroom uninvited.
“Hey.” Sonic walked to his bedside, sitting down on the edge next to where Shadow was lying. “Rouge called me. She had to go talk to your commander for a bit, so I’m gonna stay here to keep an eye on ya.”
Shadow just stared at him blankly, feeling an odd mix of emotions in his chest that he couldn’t properly convey. He was grateful for Sonic’s part in freeing him, but at the same time, he hated the idea of his rival seeing him like this; small, broken, dependent on someone else’s care. Even worse was the thought of Sonic taking care of him while Rouge was gone. He just hoped that she came back quickly. The last thing he wanted was for Sonic to have to hold him up as he struggled to choke down fluids.
He shifted his gaze from Sonic to the wall, accepting the other hedgehog’s presence. There wasn’t much he could do about it anyway. He couldn’t tell Sonic to leave, or physically shove him out.
“Rouge told me you still can’t talk.” Sonic said, and Shadow shot him a sideways glance. “I was just wonderin’ if you’d like some help finding a different way to communicate.”
Shadow frowned, silently questioning.
“I didn’t talk much as a kid- surprising, I know.” Sonic smirked when Shadow raised an eye ridge. “But it’s true. I actually stopped talking entirely for a few years. I just… couldn’t get the words out, you know? It wasn’t really a big deal at first, ‘cause I usually just kept to myself anyway, but after I met Tails, I wanted a way to talk to him that wasn’t so… I don’t know, overwhelming? Painful? So, instead of verbally speaking, Tails and I learned Sign Language.”
Shadow blinked, uncomprehending.
“Do you know what that is?” When Shadow shook his head, just a little, Sonic continued, “Sign Language is primarily how deaf people communicate, but many others use it as well. It was the only way I could talk when I couldn’t, you know, talk. And, if you’re willing, I’d like to teach you a bit, just to make things easier on you while you’re healing. I’d teach Rouge whatever you learn too.”
Something flickered within Shadow’s chest, a soft spark that he hadn’t felt since before he was captured.
“Do you want me to teach you?”
Just nodding made his head ache, but he pushed through the pain for the promise of even a little normalcy.
***
Rouge felt absolutely drained when she returned to the apartment. She was so sick of having to hear anything about the bastards that had kidnapped Shadow. She’d spent months searching for him, was it so wrong to want to stay by his side a little longer before she was dragged back into work?
She was certain that he was alright, though. Well, as ‘alright’ as he could be right now. She trusted Sonic to take care of him, and as difficult and grumpy as Shadow could be sometimes, she’d seen Sonic’s patience firsthand, always willing to slow down when someone he cared about was in distress. She just hoped Shadow hadn’t been too upset about her calling Sonic over. Under better circumstances, he would have fought against it, claiming that he didn’t need to be babysat (with how reckless he could be on missions sometimes, she begged to differ). But now, as weak as he was, she didn’t think he even had a way to express if it upset him or not.
He’d just seemed so… empty, lately. When he wasn’t sleeping or struggling to eat, he was staring blankly at his walls, or crying silently into his blankets. He was so unlike the impossibly strong hedgehog he had been just months ago, and though she didn’t know everything he’d been through in that facility, she knew that it had to have been truly horrific to leave him so weakened.
Walking deeper into the apartment, she entered the hallway and headed toward Shadow’s room, finding the door already open. She peeked inside, and what she saw left her pausing, almost frozen in shock.
Shadow was sitting up in bed, propped up by multiple pillows since he couldn’t support his own weight for very long. Sonic was sitting on the edge next to him, making some sort of movement with his paws that Rouge didn’t understand. After a moment of watching and just a little bit of struggle, Shadow shakily repeated the motion with his own paws.
“Yeah, you got it!” Sonic encouraged, and Rouge saw Shadow do something that she hadn’t seen since long before the facility.
Shadow smiled. It was small, almost timid, but it was the first real smile Rouge had seen since he’d been freed.
“Having fun?” Rouge called out from the doorway.
Shadow flinched, and Rouge winced silently, having forgotten how jumpy he’d been recently. He relaxed again when he recognized her, and though that smile was gone, he still looked more content now than she’d seen from him all week.
“Oh, hey!” Sonic greeted. “I was just teaching Shadow a few signs that I thought might be helpful while he’s recovering.”
Ah, so that’s what those hand motions were. She’d actually forgotten that Sonic even knew Sign Language to begin with.
“Really? Like what?” Rouge asked, stepping further into the room to sit at the corner of Shadow’s bed.
Sonic glanced to Shadow expectantly, and Shadow lifted a shaky paw. Looking directly at Rouge, he tucked his fingers under his chin before sliding them out toward Rouge, the slightest hint of a smirk on his face.
Rouge’s head tilted. “What does that mean?”
Sonic snorted. “It means ‘fuck you’.”
Rouge’s jaw dropped as Shadow’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. “Why would you teach him that?!”
“I had to teach him something mean, or he wouldn’t pay attention!”
Rouge just shook her head with a sigh. “Did you teach him anything productive?”
“Wh- yes!” Sonic let out an offended scoff.
Sonic explained the signs he’d been teaching Shadow, all basic things that would be useful until Shadow could speak again, or move around on his own. Things like ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘hungry’, ‘tired’, ‘bathroom’, and a few others, along with a couple more insults thrown in ‘for fun’ (Rouge already knew Shadow was going to overuse them). Sonic demonstrated each one to her, so she’d know what Shadow was trying to tell her.
Though Shadow’s movements were slow and shaky, the meaning behind the signs were still easier to understand than the jumbled texts he’d tried sending her. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better, and that was really all she could hope for at the moment.
And if it meant seeing Shadow like this again, finally looking just a bit more like his old self, she would happily accept whatever ridiculous insults Sonic had taught Shadow, as long as it meant getting to see him smile again.