"Huh? You rented us a mountain cabin?" Sonic asked, tilting his head.
"Yeah." Shadow said, sitting down on the couch and pulling his boyfriend onto his lap. "I thought it would be nice to get away…" he murmured into Sonic's chest in between kisses.
Suddenly there was an explosion from the back room.
"Tails!" Sonic exclaimed, leaping out of Shadow's lap to his friend's workshop. Shadow sighed, drumming his fingers on the coffee table.
"Hey, what happened?" Knuckles asked, coming out of his and Tails's shared bedroom. Shadow shrugged. Knuckles ran off to the back room and bumped into Sonic, who was coming out. He leaped onto Shadow's lap sideways and planted a kiss on his cheek.
"Nothing to worry about. So, what were we talking about?" Shadow sighed and adjusted Sonic so that he was straddling him.
"I rented us a mountain cabin so we could get away from here and all your stupid friends." he said tartly.
"Hey! My friends aren't stupid!"
"O.K. then, they're annoying. We can't do anything together for five minutes straight without Tails or Knuckles needing you! We haven't had sex in weeks, and I'm going fucking crazy!"
A small sound made the angry couple look toward the middle of the room. Tails and Knuckles were standing there.
"Uhh…we'd be listening behind the door, but there kinda isn't one handy soo…Ow!" Tails elbowed Knuckles, then started dragging him to their room.
Shadow removed his hand from his face and made a 'see-what-I-mean' gesture. Sonic didn't want to admit it, but Shadow did have a point.
"When do we leave?"
"Day after tomorrow. Don't pack your pyjamas." Shadow said, kissing Sonic's hand.
"Is that it? Up there?" Sonic asked.
"No, that's where we check in and get our key." Sonic smiled at Shadow and grabbed his hand.
"Are you excited?"
"Mm-hm."
"All right, here's your key, your cabin is number 17. Have a nice stay!" the receptionist said. Shadow took the key and walked out the door.
"Geeze, you can't even thank the lady?" Sonic said.
"What do I need to thank her for? She gets paid to hand people keys and wish them a nice stay."
"Well, Shadow, you might not have gotten the memo, but there's a thing called common courtesy being used nowadays."
"Hmph."
"Shadow, sometime I just want to hit that asshole attitude right out of you."
"And sometimes you just want to crawl on my lap and get fucked."
"Sssh! Not so loud, Shadow!" Sonic exclaimed, hiding his face in Shadow's chest. Shadow smirked and put his arm around him.
It was starting to snow lightly as they entered the quiet lane where the cabins were situated. Sonic stuck out his tongue to catch a snowflake, but just as one landed on his tongue, Shadow lapped it up.
"You stole my snowflake!" Sonic accused.
"It tasted good." Shadow placed a feathery kiss on top of Sonic's head. "It tastes like you." he whispered.
"Stop being all mushy! We're almost there!" Sonic said, pushing Shadow playfully as they entered their cabin. Sonic flung his bag on the nearest piece of furniture and plopped down on the sofa. Shadow set his bag down next to Sonic's and sat on the sofa. Sonic stretched out on the sofa with his hands behind his head and his head on Shadow's lap.
"Aaaahhh…what do you want to do first?" Sonic asked.
"You know what I want to do…" Shadow murmured, slowly unwrapping Sonic's scarf.
"Oh!" Sonic exclaimed, jumping up. "I've got something for you!" He rummaged through his bag until he produced a white box.
"Rouge helped me pick it out. I wanted to get you something totally different, but this is what she said would be a better choice." Shadow unpeeled the layers of tissue paper and held up his present.
"It's a sweater." he said in an odd tone of voice.
"Yeah. Like I said, I wanted to get you something totally different, but Rouge convinced me to get that. Is it okay?" Sonic babbled.
"Yeah, it's fine. I was just expecting….something different…" Shadow looked at the purple and white monstrosity.
"Well, I'm going to go unpack. You can…y'know, call everyone and tell them we got here safely." Sonic said, retreating into the bedroom.
"Okay…" Shadow said. He heaved a sigh of disgust and picked up the receiver to dial Rouge. She picked up after the third ring.
"Hello?"
"Hey. It's me, Shadow."
"Oh, hey Shadow. Are you at the lodge yet?"
"Yeah, we just got here. Sonic gave me a present." Rouge squealed.
"Do you like it?"
"No." Shadow said flatly.
"What do you mean, no?" Rouge demanded.
"I mean, it's the ugliest goddamn sweater I've ever seen."
"Sweater? What? Oh, no he didn't! He chickened out!"
"What? I can't hear you."
"Nothing, Shadow." she said sweetly.
"What the hell were you thinking, convincing Sonic to get me that sweater?"
"I don't know. Sonic probably misunderstood me. Give the phone to him."
"Okay." Shadow went into the bedroom and threw the phone to Sonic. Sonic fumbled and nearly dropped it, but eventually got a good enough grip to put it to his ear.
"Hello?"
"You chickened out!" Rouge admonished.
"Gah! I know!" Sonic walked past Shadow into the living room, then went through the sliding glass doors to the back porch. Shadow watched him walk away, then sighed and sat down on the couch.
"Can he hear you?" Rouge asked.
"No, I'm out on the porch." Sonic said, wiping the still falling snow form the rail so he could lean on it.
"Why didn't you do it? Were you waiting for a more romantic time? And what's with the sweater?"
"I'm…just really unsure. Shadow and I have been dating for three years now, and when my heart told me I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, I followed it and we went shopping for the ring. Even though you said it was strange for the bottom to propose to the top, I still wanted to do it. I love him, and was so excited about proposing and getting married, but…I had nightmares. So I would stay awake all night…but the doubts still came.
"I was so worried, what if Shadow doesn't want to get married? What if he doesn't love me as much as I love him? What if we do get married, but then we fall out of love? I was so nervous, and I thought you had already tipped him off about expecting a surprise, I went into a store and bought the first thing I saw. I'm really confused… this isn't like me at all..."
"You're afraid of commitment." Rouge declared. "I've always thought that about you. You always want to go new places, do new things. That's the reason you always freaked out when Amy mentioned marriage. Apart from the whole being-gay-thing. I was surprised when you said you wanted to settle down with Shadow. You're not exactly a consistent type, Shadow complains about it sometimes."
"He does?" Sonic asked, crestfallen.
"Sweetheart, that doesn't mean anything. Half the time I want to throttle Knuckles, but I still love him."
"But do you think you could be married happily? Shadow really gets on my nerves sometimes. Just earlier, he was rude to the receptionist and made me angry, and I thought, can I put up with that for the rest of my life? I hate not knowing what to do. My heart says yes, but everything else screams no."
"It's a big decision." Rouge reassured. "Of course Shadow loves you. He's just not one to say it much. But you two are really affectionate, right? Shadow is always holing you and kissing you. That's how he says he loves you."
"You sure it's not just strong libido?" Sonic asked doubtfully.
"Well, I wouldn't know about that. But he does really love you."
"Does he want to marry me?"
Rouge sighed. "I have to tell you straight that I don't know. You're with him right now, why don't you test the water? Have a serious conversation about your relationship."
"Rouge, guys don't really talk about things."
"You're talking about this to me right now." Rouge protested.
"That's different. You're a girl. You how Shadow is, you can't get him to talk about anything."
"Well, you have to at least try. I don't know what else I can tell you."
Sonic sighed. "Okay. Thanks Rouge, I can already see Shadow stewing on the couch."
"Okay. Bye." Sonic hung up and entered the living room. He was blasted with warm air, in his preoccupation; he hadn't realized how cold it was outside.
"What was that all about?" Shadow asked coldly."
"Nothing." Sonic said, placing the phone back on the receiver.
"Great. I just love how everyone talks about things behind my back."
"It's not like that, Shadow."
"Whatever." Shadow said callously, stalking off.
"Where are you going?" Sonic asked.
"Outside." Shadow slammed the door.