Originally written date: 03-04-13
I took it down (don't remember why) and I'm posting it again. The chapters are already written out, so I'll be putting them up weekly.
On a night where the air was warm with summer and murky with the settling fog that sunk into the cracked grounds like old friends, hushing the atmosphere into daunting humidity, a lone hedgehog made his way through the suburban parts of the streets, a more or less scrawnier area where crime was not a stranger. A casting loom settled over his namesake on the ground, following him into the clutches of a random pub that filtered the lucid scent of gratifying alcohol.
Shadow the Hedgehog… on his off-hours… what else would he do?
Honestly, the victim of his often well-thought insults and threats spent his off-time in the leisure of a wooden house belonging to a mastermind fox while consuming that strange dog meat and watching reruns of his own heroic acts or of action movies that played a bunch of fascists holding plastic guns. The fox kit of whom the victim of his often well-though insults and threats spent his off-time with spent his own time building intangible machines and mechanisms with his hero's name on them. The red echidna's past-time was more obvious than anything. The doctor just came up with more and more defective plans to overtake the world. Rouge just sniffed for trouble, harassing pedestrians or robbing banks.
And he, the all-mysterious Shadow the Hedgehog, the creation of Gerald Robotnik that saved the world countless times and kept returning from deaths that were never damned—what did he do when everyone wasn't looking? When he isn't dragged into some stupid world crisis and the world decides to turn their cameras on him?
'He probably finds a dark alley to wait in, stare mysteriously into the dark, like the dark hero he is. Shadow the Hedgehog, staring at the moon and thinking dark stuff, 'cause he's all dark like that.'
He wouldn't be able to find a bigger load of trash if he'd tried.
No—so when Shadow the Hedgehog wasn't trying to save the world, or aiding in the doctor's plans, or just being mysterious in the background like the shadowy bravado people had labeled him with while Sonic the Cuntbag pranced around in front of the flashes, he was here. In a bar.
He pulled in, taking a quiet seat on a stool, tipping his hat lower, keeping his eyes as so. His eyes. His red eyes. His identifier. Sonic the Hedgehog didn't have cruel, evil eyes as red as his.
Screw him.
A pause… and he breathed out as he surveyed an analysis of the room. A low roofed place, musky, crawling with filth-dwellers and rumbling with the quiet blur of voices melding in cusses or agony. The stools to his left were almost empty, every other being occupying one had at least a four-seat distance between the next chap, and there was one couple of potential prostitutes lounging nearby the center seats, their scrutinizing eyes played to Shadow of their hunt for game enough to score over fifty bucks. To blend in with the whores come the big mutants passing off as beings, and thugs who stabbed you for walking past them, all churning with the heavy scent of sweat, body retentions, and an unmistakable aroma of a symphony of sweet alcohol gave bear as to any other stroll-in-the-slums bar. It wasn't those bars that were clean, or imitated a school-like the PG-13 version of the story, which is somehow how it always flipped as. It was those bars that you knew existed in life, but only existed in your imagination, where it's never as bad as it really is.
"Can I get you something, sir?" His shoulders tensed under the oversized coat, a cliché of something bland and unnoticeable. Making sure to keep his face hidden, a sense of foreboding dread leaked into his gut—he knew that voice—he risked a glance up, surprising himself enough to slack for a moment, for their eyes to meet and he had to confirm.
Her mouth parted a little, and he saw the instant recognition that struck, and he waited. Waited for the yell, or the 'what are you doing here?!' or the whiny 'get out!' or something that he could familiarize himself with. He saw it, too. The flittering curiosity in her eyes, hanging heavily and desperately, and still he waited for a loud response of some sort, even an accusation, but instead, the mouth that had opened for a question let out a rush of air instead of words, pursing tightly as a strange focus settled in her eyes. Squaring her shoulders, she repeated.
"Can I get you something, sir?" He felt a little twitch inside of him, whether of the peculiarity of the situation or the irony that he wished to ask her the same question that she hid from him.
He wanted to laugh, too, except he never really laughed before so he wasn't sure how it felt like or when the timing was. He couldn't even remember her name. He knew that he knew it. It was there, buried somewhere in his mind. He quirked at the crevices, tugging at nostalgic strings to give him acknowledgement or-
Rose. Rose. He didn't remember her first name, but he was sure of it—that her last name was Rose. Or she had Rose somewhere in her name.
Maybe.
And he wanted to. He really wanted to ask her—why little Sonic-loving Rose was in front of him in one of the slummiest bars he'd ever been to. The curiosity was nagging him, and he inquisitively studied her, tugging at something habitual to pull to the surface, but she held steady under his gaze, eyes averted, but posture strong.
And she was nervous. He knew she was. He had that effect on people.
He leaned in closer, his breath heavy and eyes intense. Get it over with seemed the better option—or he just wanted that diverted reaction. "Ask me."
Her response shot him with something of curiosity and amusement. A fiery glare narrowed her eyes, and she shifted on her other foot, a strange form of determination and defiance settling over her.
"Can I get you something, sir?" Something lit. In her eyes or in his stomach, and he knew it was the way she said it, or something… fervent he found burning under her skin, under that tongue, under that absent sweet voice.
"Ask me." The demand served as a sort of temptation for her, something she adamantly refused to cave into.
"It is within my job restrictions: no invading on the customer's personal life. You answer, but I don't ask." His eyes narrowed, but something of an intrigued grin attempted to poke at his mouth, and perhaps it was because he knew—he knew how bad she wanted to ask him but that she wouldn't let herself succumb to it, and somewhere, somewhere, somewhere, he felt something deep within him tip to molten and feverish.
"Look, I have other customers to tend to." Her impatient tone struck something through him, gave him appeasement at her discomfort. For that moment in the night, perhaps which would lead to the hereafter, he had forgotten which Rose she was, or whose Rose she was.
But he wouldn't ask. It wasn't like him to ask. So he wasn't going to. Asking meant he was curious, and asking meant admitting it, so no, he wasn't going to ask.
And with all that liquor behind her, not even that amount would persuade him…
"One last time with no straight answer and I'm off: can I get you something, Shadow?" She frowned, and perhaps she hadn't noticed that she had called his name, but he did. He noticed the way she shifted from one foot to the other, from one hip up to the other down. He noticed the way she bit her lips at her anxiety, and the way she eyed the other corners of the bar, refusing to meet his eyes.
He felt… sick.
His mouth moved to the tune of the cheapest whiskey, and she blinked uncomprehendingly for a moment before turning to leave.
And the sick feeling got heavier.
Stay…
She blinked, giving him a peculiar look, and it took him three full seconds to realize he had spoken aloud.
She frowned, "I have a job to do."
His mouth moved before he did. "Why?"
She looked… annoyed. "I need to make a living."
This time he managed to hold himself before anything slipped, and she took her leave. Shadow on his off-hours with nothing better to do… he pondered. He never wondered of Rose's life outside of chasing the blue imbecile. Never really thought of what went beyond what he'd seen.
And it didn't matter to him.
He didn't speak to her for the rest of the night.