Author's Note:
Yikes, again, guys, sorry for the wait. School started up again, and finding time to write is about as easy as waking up early to go to school in the morning—meaning, next to impossible. I'm afraid I didn't get to proofread this chapter because I was in a rush to finish it—thought I'd deprived you guys for a tad too long.
There isn't much Shadow and Cream interactions in this chapter—but there's some looking into Shadow's emotions and his everlasting denial that he cares for Cream. This chapter isn't my funniest—I'll give you that, but I was reading a really angsty and serious fic recently, and I'm just not feeling amped to add drops of humor into this fic because I'm so used to reading and expecting seriousness.
Anyways, thank you guys for following and favoriting! And, especially, thanks to all who reviewed—it means a lot! As usual, please enjoy this chapter and if you did, please follow/favorite and/or review!
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"But, Mister Shadow—"
"No."
Shadow sighed. This was by far the longest argument he'd ever had in his life—and quite possibly the most boring and most repetitive one. Seriously—he'd been saying 'no' for the past hour and Cream still was trying to get him to take her shopping. She'd needed new shoes and had mentioned that they were running low on groceries—but there was no way in hell that he was going to go out in public with her.
(Forcibly) Gardening outside was one thing—but having his reputation entirely squandered by running around in plain sight with a little rabbit and her Chao tailing behind was a whole other realm of hell he'd rather not visit at this time. Or ever, for that matter.
Cream sighed and looked at him with watery eyes, and he successfully managed to retain his steely gaze. Her 'puppy dog eyes' had been emptied of their power—and to Shadow's everlasting delight—he'd become immune. One too many times with him succumbing to their everlasting cuteness had taught him a cold lesson—cute was never cute for long.
When she saw her gaze had no effect on him, Cream sighed louder, and her mouth formed a rare pout, even though Shadow could see films of panic over her eyes. Panicked? Over what? Weirdo.
"Mister Shadow," she explained, Cheese bobbing next to her for emphasis. "My shoes got all muddy from gardening yesterday and Mama won't be happy to see that when she gets home. Yesterday—when you weren't talking to me?—there was nothing to eat and you had to had to make boiled unripened carrots for dinner."
He grimaced. How could he forget that? The small, tough roots had tasted rubbery and bland, and he vowed never to eat them ever again. Cream had seemed happy enough eating them—she was a rabbit, after all, so vegetables must have seemed like candy to her.
Shadow turned his head and gave a customary humph, crossing his arms. "Pfft, that's not my problem."
She nodded compliantly at his statement, but then pointed at her mud-covered shoes. "Okay, Mister Shadow—we can just pick more vegetables from the garden—those which are ripened, that is." Shadow grimaced, but didn't turn around. "But—I still need new shoes." She turned to Cheese, who made some elaborate gestures towards her, and nodded. "Great idea, Cheese! Mister Shadow—if you want, I can go by myself. I can use the rings Mama left for me and buy my own shoes at the mall."
He sighed in relief. Well, that was settled. Why hadn't he thought of that before? Going to the store by herself was a great idea. Hadn't he let her go off on her own before? To a friend's house? Wasn't a mall like, um—a big, crowded, friend's house?
Shadow groaned. That was probably his most stupid-sounding excuse yet.
"Whatever, do what you want," he muttered, heading back towards the kitchen to raid the counters for any food he'd missed when he scoured the kitchen for ingredients to make dinner yesterday.
Cream nodded, albeit a little warily, and headed towards the doormat that greeted the front door of the house. Shadow watched, confused, as she lifted the mat and pulled out a small bag of bag of rings. He couldn't help but feel a little miffed—why did Vanilla feel like she had to hide her money? Did she think that he'd steal it or something? He'd never do such a thing—he had much more honor than that!
Not that he really showed it.
...Whatever.
Shut up.
She smiled at Cheese and began to head out the door.
"Goodbye, Mister Shadow!" she called, waving wildly, before softly closing the door behind her.
Shadow couldn't help but roll his eyes. She was going to the mall for Chaos Sake—not dying or anything. Since when did elaborate goodbyes become necessary?
A little alarmed by the quiet—Cream was almost always somewhere around the house, making some kind of noise with Cheese—Shadow changed course from the kitchen and returned to his flower-covered armchair by the fire to brood. Nodding appreciatively at his Hover Shoes, he sunk deep into the chair and closed his eyes.
To think, his waterlogged Hover Shoes were what brought him here to this Godforsaken cottage, and now, even though they were dry, he was duty-bound not to leave until Vanilla came back—whether he liked it or not. (And he didn't like it—for the record.) Hell, he'd had thoughts of finding a replacement a few chapters ago, but he quickly voided those arguments—although he wasn't sure why. It wasn't like he enjoyed his stay at Cream's cottage.
Speaking (thinking? brooding?) about Cream, Shadow didn't exactly know why—but something pricked his conscious whenever he thought about her. It wasn't exactly affection, but he felt a barrier of protectiveness form around his thoughts' incarnation of the young rabbit whenever she was in his mind. He had no explanation for it, but he knew that whatever odd need he had to defend Cream certainly had started to pique the second she'd left the house for the mall.
Shadow had tried to smother it with overwhelming amounts of indifference—it worked for everyone else—but it was pointless. The trail of feeling had only grown stronger the longer she'd gone and by now—in the few minutes that had passed—he felt it create an inundating tidal wave that crashed over him, and made his practically-never-before-been-used 'worry sensors' start to go off.
It was odd—care, worry—those weren't feelings he usually entertained, and it was even more startling now that they had attacked him as soon as Cream had left.
A torrent of horrific memories washed over him, and his aged past only added to the graphic imagery.
Cream, body mutilated and bloody, attacked by a group of thugs that haunted the alleys by the mall.
Her yellow fur, patchy with swaths of bone peeking through, emaciated by the kidnappers that had taken her the second she'd stepped out of the shoe store with her new shoes.
Her thin limbs, clutching Cheese daintily, as she lay there, dead, with a bullet hole straight through her forehead, put there by a crazed mall shooter that had run rampant with a loaded gun.
And he hadn't been there to stop anything.
When the tsunami of images halted, Shadow was left wide-eyed with horror and was uncharacteristically broken out in a freezing cold sweat.
"No," he whispered.
Shit, he was talking to himself again.
And being overdramatic—but still, let him care for once.
Shaking his head with a new resolve, Shadow raised himself off of the armchair and zipped out the door—double checking the lock on his way out. What? No, he wasn't paranoid, thank you for asking.
As he zoomed through the neighborhood with his Hover Shoes, Shadow tried to convince himself in changing the reason behind why he was going.
He didn't care about Cream.
No, he was doing this because if Vanilla came home to see a dead daughter (ahem, overdramatic), she'd kick his royal ass straight into oblivion.
Deep down, really deep down, Shadow knew his true intentions about protecting Cream, but he sure as hell wasn't going to admit them now. He'd already admitted more than he wanted to, and he wasn't going to do anything to reiterate it.
He sped passed strip malls and stores, parks and libraries, before he finally arriving at the mall.
It was a busy day, and plenty of cars had crowded the parking lots, so much so that if Shadow had been driving a car, he'd never be able to find a parking lot. Good thing that he was the fastest thing alive then, because he was able to get to the entrance in less than fifteen seconds.
Odd and surprised looks greeted him as he wandered aimlessly through the mall foyer. That wasn't what was bothering him, though. People could stare at him all they liked—he hardly paid attention. And by hardly, that means, absolutely, one-hundred percent, not at all.
He had a bigger problem on his hands.
Like how to find a cream-colored rabbit and her floaty blue Chao in a crowd this large. He knew she was going to the shoe store, and that information would have been infinitely helpful if he'd gone to the mall before and knew where it was. But, since he lived so far away and wasn't one for social scenes or shopping, for that matter, he'd never been and never regretted it.
Until now.
He couldn't very well ask someone for directions—it was always a gamble when he talked to strangers. They usually did one of three options whenever he even looked to them:
1. Fainted (highly common)
2. Ignored him (common)
3. Picked a fight (he wished it was more common)
He decided Cream was worth the risk (...did he really just think that?), he walked up towards a kind-enough-looking green fox and asked,
"Hey, lady, where's the shoe store around here?"
Shadow groaned when she fainted at his feet. So much for asking for directions.
Not really feeling up to asking someone else, Shadow decided to hedge his bets and wander around the mall for awhile, glad that people parted like the Red Sea when they saw him coming—he needed to find Cream and fast, and large crowds would not help. Seriously, how did the 'faker' deal with all his paparazzi?
20 minutes later, Shadow was hopelessly lost. Somehow, he'd landed in the teen fashion section of the mall—and it really didn't help that Chaos Topic had a really large poster of him endorsing their product. It also didn't help that the poster resembled his current state perfectly—arms crossed, slouched, and with an even-grouchier-than-usual pout painted on his face. Heck, some people had dared to even poke him to see if he was a mannequin. They'd scampered away quicker that hedgehogs could run when he shot them a glare, though.
"Excuse me, Mister Shadow, sir?" a voice that sounded surprisingly like Cream's called from his side.
Shadow turned around eagerly (but not too eagerly), but to his disappointment(?), it was just a neon pink rabbit about Cream's age with an orange Chao floating beside her.
He turned back to his previous position and humphed. "What do you want?"
The little girl frowned and quivered under his glare. "I—I was j—just wond—wondering—if—if—you were l—l—lost. You—you—you—look—l—lost. Are—y—you?"
"No, I'm not," he retorted, hunching even more forward. He wasn't going to admit he was wrong, not to a total stranger, especially when they seemed to be afraid of him.
Blinking rapidly, the bunny turned away. "I—oh—o—okay."
Rolling his eyes, Shadow moved away from Chaos Topic's store front, and resumed his wandering. As he rounded the entrance in a full circle for the third time—he began to wonder if this was a hopeless cause. What if Cream had already returned home? Then this whole expedition would be pointless. Damn, if he could just find that shoe store and check to see if she was there or not, he could just head back.
Aimlessly walking, his eyes glossed over every shop sign, looking desperately for one that said shoe store. Pausing his sign reading, Shadow spotted a mall map that hadn't been there before—had it? He'd been so caught up in studying the signs that he'd hardly even noticed his surroundings.
Sighing because of his stupidity, Shadow forced his feet to zoom over the map and began to study it. Lucky for him, all the clothing stores were labeled with a green 'shirt' symbol, and he was able to locate it on the map easily. It was on the wing of the mall just right of him—how the hell did he miss that?
Zipping over to the shoe store, Shadow was glad to see a small orangey-yellow figure emerge from the exit with a blue blob bobbing behind just as he arrived.
Finally.
To say that the was relieved that Cream hadn't been mutilated, kidnapped or shot pleased him more than he thought he would, and he felt more satisfied than ever that he was by her side to protect her from any danger whether her mom wanted him to or not as he fell into step with her towards the mall's exit.
"Mister Shadow!" Cream gasped when she felt the broody hedgehog's presence next to her. "What are doing here?"
"I realized I needed to buy something," he lied smoothly, his face hardening back into a mess of frowns and sharp edges.
She gave him a confused once-over and stared at his empty hands. "But you didn't buy anything."
Shadow inwardly flipped out over her words. Dammit! Why hadn't he remembered that? A new lie to cover the old one seemed to be the route he'd take today. "They were all out. Looks like I'll have to come by another time."
"Oh," Cream nodded, understanding and believing his lie.
Guilt, guilt, guilty-guilt-guilt.
Her eyes brightened and she turned towards him and gestured to her shopping bag. "Well, Mister Shadow, do you want to see the shoes that Cream and I bought?"
"No," Shadow said dryly, meaning every word. What? He didn't care if she was wearing shoes or walking barefoot—it wasn't his business.
"Okay, then do you want to hear what the nice cashier said to us?"
"No."
"How about when we were picking out the shoes?"
"No."
"Well—what about when me and Cheese bumped into Sonic and Knuckles by the gaming—"
"—No."
And so it went, all the way home.
Author's Note #2:
Ick, that was such a bad ending. Sorry about that!
Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed (albeit the ending), and if you do, please favorite/follow and/or review! Thanks!