"Come on Shadow, the water's great!"
"It's nice and warm…I'll even get some bubbles running for ya!"
Shadow looked at the clock. 10 PM. He should be getting to bed, to wake up for the next mission, but Sonic was enticing him to take a bath with him. Did that mongrel hated water anyways? Why did he even want to use his water and use his own Mr. Bubbles bottle and eat his own turkey he bought? Was there something sinister in having Sonic come over? There shouldn't be. Yet he eyed the tub, full of pink bubbles, Sonic laughing and chortling and splashing in the water, and he thought he heard the timer go off for the turkey. He told him it was time to eat, but Sonic said, "It's not time to eat yet! You know what time it is, Shadow?"
"No, I don't. Now get your naked butt over here before I kick it-…"
"It's bath time! And I got to get all clean before we go off on another adventure, don't I?"
He could smell something burning. His anger was rising, and so was the smoke. The more the hedgehog splashed in the bath like a happy duckling, the more he wanted to drag him out of the tub and eat the damn turkey soaking wet and still with a coat of pink bubbles attached to him.
"Come on Shad, you need to chill out once in a while! And the nice way to chill is with a relaxing bath!"
He looked at his fur. He noticed he was scruffy on a few patches, his feet could get a good cleaning after being in his hovershoes for so long, and maybe Sonic was right that he needed to "chill out". He just couldn't imagine being in a bathtub with…him.
Shadow took his shoes and gloves off, while he gazed at Sonic, smiling and splashing a spot for him. The tub was still full of baby newborn bubbles for him to soak in. Sonic even squirted more bubbles for him, just to help him relax further.
"Alright, I'll get in, but you better not pull anything on me, or I'll…"
Sonic pulled on his arm, snickering, a wide, placate grin displaying so brilliantly in the light, as Shadow had felt the warm water ooze through his fur, coarse through his feet and his quills that needed the soaking…and it felt good. It felt nice to be in a warm place after so long, when it had been nothing but a cold, harsh winter for what seemed to be many years.
Sonic relaxed, his feet prominently displayed on the edges of the tub, and he could still see that wide smirk, as the bubbles had raised higher, Shadow nearly suffocated with a shower of warm froth. Sonic had done the childish tropes of a bubblebath, to put on a beard and say he was a gnome, and then make himself another strange hairdo after he placed the bubbles on his head. Shadow waded in the warm water, remembering the last time when he had a bubble bath, in years that were too long ago that he could only faintly remember when both he and Maria would take a bubblebath, when he was only a small child, lovestruck with the beautiful child with the sea-blue eyes and the golden locks.
"Isn't this fun, Shadow? The water feels really warm, you have all these toys to play with, and plus it's fun to see your skin prune up when you're in the water for too long. It's strange, but I find it fascinating!"
Shadow looked at the many rubber duckies and toy boats that lied awake for him, as he pressed them in the water, seeing them sink and then rise up as if they were fish looking for food above the surface. The toy boats were in colorful designs, Fischer-Price quality with their plasticity, and he found himself embarrassed with this nakedness that was revealed to him, the girl that grew breasts, as Mother Nature had intended, and while he barely knew what they were, he found himself loving her anyways, feeling safe around her, his caretaker, his near-mother figure, if only he could smell the shampoo in her hair again, feel her warm kisses that were just as warm as the bath water, see and be entranced by her eyes every time she gazed at him…
"Shadow! Shadow! What's up with you, bud?"
He found himself thinking of the past when he dived deep in the water, sinking his head low like a hungry crocodile. Sonic still smiled widely, and told him, "Now this isn't so bad, is it, Shadow? It seems like you're gettin' a load off your mind!"
He didn't reply, but underneath the crystal-waves of the water, he could feel Sonic touching his hand, gripping it, the cheeks reddening from more than the heat of the tub and pink bubbles surrounding them.
"I'm sure whatever you were thinking about was painful, was it, Shadow?"
He closed his eyes briefly as he let the waves of the crystal sea wash over him, and he said, "I guess it is somewhat painful. It's a good memory, but it hurts. It's a happy memory, but when you realize that person is gone to no longer spend any happy moments with, not even some sad ones, then it's even more painful. I thought she was still alive, but she isn't. Not that I heard of. Those stars lie to me. They are nothing but lies in long, crystallized tails. And I hate them for that. Never had I heard of a bigger liar than a star."
(Was she sent to the Earth in a capsule? It was her, wasn't it? Ready to live on the planet with him. This planet that was green and blue and was beautiful and ugly and proud and weak and sick and strong…)
"Maybe they are liars, Shadow." He moved away the pink bubbles to see his face, no longer with a jubilant grin, but a frown, that he knew this was a serious moment (for once, Shadow believed). "But there are a lot of people and things that tell the truth. Like these…" He tried to think of anything that he thought could tell the warm, not brittle truth of Shadow's past, but he kept looking at the sudsy water, which reminded him of the stars that Shadow had hated so much…
"The bubbles don't lie. They tell you who you really are. I see a great future in you, Shadow. I see that you will be happy someday. And isn't that what Maria truly wanted?"
The bathwater felt like a large coat, protecting him from his anger. From his devout outrage that Maria was dead, and he could never revive her. He could never die from age, but Maria who was supposed to live for as long as his 50 years, had died of a gunshot wound to the heart, while it bleated and cried out for him. He wanted to feel sadness. He wanted to add his tears to the brew of their dead skin cells and the bubbles, but he kept them locked tight, as Sonic held him as they lowered deeper into the glass river, the bubbles sparkling rivets of light, the small little sparks of rubies, of topazes and pearls and sapphires. Shadow felt he was in a blown glass art show, and Sonic had reached closer to him, till their lips touched, their hearts touched, their hands touched. The water had warmed him enough. His heart stroked him. It was the hearth burning up for him.
The heart had arms, as it touched his scarred face, his eyes hard-set with the blood of so many people who died before him, and the glass enveloped him, the tendrils of light beckoning him to love. He never could love after Maria died. No one could. A sweet, little blue-eyed angel. They had pricked their fingers and rubbed them together, the blood brother and sister of the ARK, and Sonic couldn't find himself letting go. His eyes were dioptase.
"Do you miss her, Shadow? Do you?"
"Do you miss everything about her?"
"Do you wish she could come back?"
The veil broke, as Shadow had decried, Yes! Yes! To all those questions. He was cold. The bubbles and warmth of the tub no longer shrouded him in a milky haze. His skin pruned, reminding that Maria had once thought of it to be fascinating, as the skin was nothing but a plastic cover being tangled in the heat. Sonic expected the charm of pink bubbles in a small bathtub with him no longer inviting him to dive deep, and he held him as his skin felt shrunken, a wrapped up corpse, smelling the blackened turkey that clouded the entire apartment.
"Enough of this nonsense, Sonic. You just ruined our dinner."
"Stay," he said.
"And why the hell should I stay? I can't expect you to clean up the mess you made while you're wrapped up in a towel."
Despite the urgency of the situation, Sonic chuckled, as he splashed more of the translucent water on him. Enough of the sad mortalities of life, it was time to have fun again, and Sonic would be his guide, his leader in this little extravagant parade called Life.
"Well, it's not much Shadow, but…I was thinking I could be your friend, to look after you, to make sure you're okay. Maria might've done a great job of that, but I'm hoping I can be as good as her. As wonderful as she was. So you don't feel alone anymore. Don't you see, Shadow? People, especially good people, do go away, but some of those really great people will remain in your life forever. I want to be that great person."
Can I be that really great person, to help you? To love you? He asked.
His cheeks were rosy as a newly dawned sun, and he tried to hide it away, into the depths of the pink bogged water. Shadow only casted a glance, not a cruel one, but neither a soft one either. He wasn't sure what to think.
"Let's throw the turkey away, Sonic. We can order a pizza. At least you can't burn that."
The bubblebath felt nice, didn't it, Shadow?
I told you it would be nice.
Sonic smiled. It was all he wanted. It was all he could ask for.
He stepped out of the tub, his fur drenched and his skin wrinkled like an 80 year old man's. They both washed and dried off, while the tub soon sank to the drain, the two remaining pink bubbles conjoined together to make a pearly heart.
And they spent another night, their bodies across from each other, in the same bed. Sonic thought he could feel Shadow's heart beat across the sheets, the blankets connected to his warm body. And it felt good.
The stars shone. Sonic wasn't sure if they kept breathing out lies for Shadow to hear. They said comfort words, as he thought he could hear the sound of a small girl, telling him that they would meet again someday.