A crinkling noise coming from downstairs woke him up. Well, it wasn't actually just the one noise, but rather it happening constantly for at least a minute straight was what did it. When it finally stopped, Sonic scrubbed at his eyes and rolled onto his back, stretching out his arms to try to lull himself back to sleep.

It didn't work. One, because he was too curious on what that sound was and if he should be worried, and two, he was missing a significant amount of warmth next to him that would be Shadow clung to his side in his sleep.

"It's not like I was tired anyway," He groaned, arms falling to his sides limply as he laid there. Welp. Time to get up.

Sonic slid his legs to the side and nearly crumbled out of bed, dragging his feet towards the door, eyes trailing to the clock on the table. It was nearing 3 AM. What could Shadow possibly be doing at 3 AM?

A powerful yawn stopped him momentarily and Sonic shook his head, slowly making his way down the stairs as he quickly questioned his sanity. There was almost as if someone had left a light on, but not quite? It was too dim to be a normal light, and looked more like… more like fire actually!

Confused adrenaline rushed through him and Sonic sprinted to the kitchen, already grabbing for the faucet with the vague idea of using water to put out the flames, before noticing that the fire wasn't hot at all.

Sonic turned, eyes wide for a second as his brain made sense of what he was looking at.

Shadow was sitting at the kitchen table, eating just a sleeve of crackers and nothing else. That wasn't the part that confused him, it was the fact that Shadow was also glowing while eating said crackers.

"...Hello," Shadow offered, looking down at the small stack of saltines he currently held between his fingers, then looked back to the other. "Do you want some…?"

"Answers? Yeah." Though, Sonic did sit next to him and take a few crackers. As he looked closer, he realized that there was an open bag of shredded cheese on the table. He would have been upset had he not done the exact same thing before.

"About what? I was hungry, so I came to eat. I didn't think coming down would bother you." Shadow shrugged, running his free hand over his quills. They were slightly frayed from how recently he woke up, and with the slight movement his glow waned, almost blinking out had he not yawned and shook himself back awake.

"I don't think that's the strangest thing, bud." Sonic set his elbow on the table and hummed. "I mean the fact that you look like someone set you on fire."

"Are you saying I'm hot?"

The sudden joke caught him off guard, and after no more than two seconds of pause, Shadow blinked and looked down at the now empty sleeve. "Anyways, if you mean… this," he gestured to his overall form. "Then it's always been this way. I'm partially bioluminescent."

The big word sailed right over Sonic's exhausted head, but he quickly came around and put two and two together. "Oh," he started "Like, mushrooms."

The bio-hog sighed, firstly due to the fact that a mushroom was the first thing the other thought of, and secondly because he absolutely knew what else Sonic was going to ask. "While a mushroom wouldn't be first thing I would say, it works."

"Shadow the mushroom." Sonic grinned, not even eating any longer, having laid his head and upper body down on the table and simply held his hand in the bag of cheese. It anything, he'd pick up few between his fingers and lazily drop them in the general direction of his mouth, and if it landed then that was a plus.

"Go to bed, Sonic."

"I'm not wrong."

"..." He opened his mouth ready to retort, then simply exhaled and pet the side of the other's head. He had no clue what the Black Arms' race had in their bloodline, there could have been mushrooms in there somewhere. "Fine, you win."

Sonic closed his eyes and simply enjoyed the touch, not saying anything else but still smiling softly. Shadow's glow was dimming now, but it was still warm and pleasant. A thought so strong and sudden woke him up entirely and he quickly sprung up straight, staring at the other with such intensity.

"I have to paint your claws glow in the dark."

"You absolutely do not have to."

"If I don't, I'm gonna call Rouge."

Shadow opened his mouth to retort, but quickly thought against it and rolled his eyes. "If you have glow-in-the-dark paint, then sure. If not then never bring it up again."

Much to his surprise, or possibly not, Sonic got up and hurried out the kitchen to rifle through one of the drawers in the living room. In the meantime Shadow tossed away the empty cracker sleeve and set the rest of the shredded cheese back into the fridge, stopping long enough to drink directly from a bottle of lemonade before hurrying to shove it back into the fridge before Sonic came back in, brandishing three bottles of nail polish. Neon yellow, red, and blue.

"... why do you have these," he honestly wasn't expecting an answer, which was good because Sonic very much did not provide an answer and just happily waved for Shadow to sit once again and give him his hand.

He started with the left, feeling a bit shy now that Sonic was holding his hand.

"I dunno, honestly. I found them a while back and tried them once for a picture, and when it didn't work because only my nails were glowing, i decided to paint my face with it."

He applied a thin coat of blue to Shadow's claw, smiling that the pain was already beginning to shine under Shadow's internal glow. Shadow also hadn't told him which colour he wanted, so he decided blue for him.

"You painted your face with nail polish?" Shadow whispered, shaking his head at the thought. "I'm somehow not surprised."

"Oh shut up, I was really sleep deprived! I managed to get it off though… with nail polish remover."

"You know you could have used diluted lemon juice, or rubbing alcohol."

Sonic snickered, blinking slowly for a second as he finished his hand off and admired his handiwork. "Pfft, were were you a month ago?"

"Not living with you." Shadow smiled, attempting to nervously offer his other hand, but Sonic was still staring at his other, noticeably at his red stripe covering two of his fingers. "Where did you learn to paint nails?"

"Hanging out with Amy…" Sonic trailed off, now switching to his Shadow's other hand. "I had a lot of fun learning how to paint them, but I'm not good at painting my own."

"I see." The two lapsed into comfortable silence, Sonic swaying gently to an unknown song as he smiled, finishing his hand and going back to the first for a second coat. Shadow watched the other, mimicking his movements as much as his body would allow, given he didn't want to ruin his nails.

As he pulled his hands back, Sonic smiled proudly at himself, eyes closing as he stopped his rocking. "Like them?"

"I do." Shadow answered quietly, standing and petting Sonic's top quill. As his hand came to a rest of his forehead, he swiftly bent to kiss the back of his hand as an indirect kiss. "Let's get you back to bed, Sonic."

"Hmm," Sonic purred, but had nothing else to say on the matter and leaned against the other heavily. Shadow chuckled softly and leaned, lifting the hedgehog into his arms and making his way upstairs.

"Goodnight." Sonic whispered, wrapping his arms loosely around Shadow's neck.

"Goodnight." Shadow echoed.