Sonic/Shadow

"Are you listening?"

Shadow was standing by his chair, packing his bag. Sonic started, glancing around at the empty classroom as the last student trailed out the door.

He fidgeted as he glanced back at Shadow, looking put out at the idea of having to linger here for Sonic's sake. "Huh, what's that? Sorry, I didn't catch what you said."

Shadow raised a brow. The kid had been spacier than usual today. He hadn't made an attempt all day to try and rope Shadow into some version of his inane small talk.

If Shadow wasn't so relieved at the quiet, he'd almost be worried.

Shadow let out a sigh. "As I was saying, I don't work this evening. Can you meet me at the library at 3:00? I'd like to get through this next assignment as soon as possible."

"Uh-huh, sure, I can come after lunch," he absently nodded along, still not entirely in this conversation.

"Look, I can't waste my time as easily as you, so please come prepared this time," Shadow wasn't feeling as compassionate as he had with Sonic before. He didn't have the patience to drag Sonic along through this assignment as well.

Sonic slowly nodded and his counterpart couldn't help but notice how oddly...subdued he was today. He didn't seem quite all there—and not in the silly airheaded way he usually was. There was a lack of proverbial pep in the blue hedgehog's step, and his voice seemed to lack its usual brightness.

It was subtle, almost unnoticeable, but the change was there.

Maybe he—Nope. Stop right there. We don't care.

"Alright, alright." Sonic sighed, throwing up his hands. He stood up with his bag in tow. "I may suck at math, but even I can, uh," He picked up the handout that he'd been too spaced out to notice before. "Sew? Wait, we've actually gotta sew old clothes?"

Rolling his eyes, Shadow held up a mesh bag of tattered clothes provided by their professor for Sonic to see. "I have a sewing kit we can use, so don't worry about that. And since you've never held a sewing needle, I assume, it would be prudent to read through these instructions. Thoroughly."

Well, he's got me there, Sonic conceded.

"Right. Okay, library at three," he nodded his head, seeming to brighten some, at least. Sonic wasn't normally the type to stay in his head, but something about Shadow's quirkily grumpy words helped pull him out for a little bit. It was nice to have someone on top of these kinds of things… at least for Sonic's sake. "See ya then, Shads!"

Opting for the path of least resistance, Shadow ignored Sonic, leaving him alone in the empty classroom.

Sonic looked back at the handout, as he walked out into the hall. Various kinds of stitches were listed, with diagrams showing how to do them. It also listed the various techniques for mending different kinds of damage to clothes; holes, tears, lost buttons, busted seams, a variety of things that Sonic had most certainly never devoted brain power to.

Why not just throw it away if it's busted? Seems like a hassle.

At least there was no math this time—that was a blessing in and of itself.

His eyes skimmed the vague-looking instructions on a basic stitch, but his mind was already wandering to what the cafeteria had cooked for lunch today.

I hope it's not that weird mushroom dish again. I hate mushroomsthey're so weird and...fungus-y.

Sonic's internal rant about the worst food known to man was cut short by a telltale DING from his phone. Expecting it to be Knuckles checking if him and Tails were on their way to the cafeteria, he was surprisingly met instead with a text from Amy.

"So, how's Mission Shadilver going? ;)"

Sonic furrowed his brow. Huh? Mission Shad—

Oh right.

His mind whipped back to the mostly joking promise he made to Silver, prompted by teasing and pizza and unexpected revelations.

A promise to flirt with Shadow by proxy.

He ran a hand over his face, already cringing internally at all the ways this could go wrong.

Well, he was nothing if not loyal. And he tried his best to keep a promise when he made it. So, he would help Silver get in good with Shadow in whatever way he could. Hopefully he could figure out the best way for Silver to get through to Shadow by being a metaphorical guinea pig to test the waters.

He tapped out a reply to Amy. "is that really what we're calling this?"

"Blaze's idea. She gets really determined with things like this. Wants Silver to be happy, y'know?'

Sonic chuckled to himself.

If he really wanted to be happy, he'd have picked a better person to crush on.

It was mean to think that way, but honestly, Shadow seemed in need of his own happiness. Who knew, though, maybe they would make a good pair after all.

"yeah, i get you! i'll flirt with him so hard for silver, he won't know what hit him!"

Sonic's overconfident message sat 'read' on his screen for a few moments longer than he'd have liked. The ellipsis of Amy's apparent text in progress popped in and out. Eventually, she responded.

"Well, at least you're enthusiastic about it…"

Sonic was taken aback. "and what's that supposed to mean? i can totally flirt! i'm charming, witty, handsome, what else do i need?"

Another pause. "Well, just give it your best! And remember, you're flirting FOR Silver, alright? ;)"

Sonic rolled his eyes. "har har, very funny. i'll report back after our meeting tonight."

Amy only replied with a thumbs up. It would be a stretch to say that Sonic had ever actually hit on anyone before. To be honest, as sociable as he was, flirtatious was not a mode he knew how to turn on. He was gonna need to do a lot of research before he met with Shadow.


Coffee cup in one hand, bag of tattered clothes in the other, Shadow stepped towards the GHU library at around 10 till 3:00. He had to rush home to grab lunch and his sewing materials, so he was thankful he could make it back to campus on time.

Passing through the automatic doors, he made his way back to his usual spot, thinking back to the odd text he received from the kid while waiting on his coffee.

"we're still meeting at 3, right?"

Shadow had sighed. Did the kid think something would change in less than 2 hours? "Yes," he typed out, annoyed.

"great. can't wait to see you ;)"

Shadow had stopped dead in his tracks at the words, brain needing a moment to process and reboot. But he had shaken it off as his name was called for his coffee, writing it off as one of Sonic's odd, idiotic idiosyncracies.

As Shadow turned the corner, he was surprised to find that Sonic was already sitting there, legs crossed, head cooly resting on hand and a grin with half cast eyes turned in Shadows direction.

"Why hello there, Shadow. Seems you're right on time," Sonic said this with a deeper tone of voice than he usually used, adding an irregular sounding creak.

Shadow felt a number of things—the most prominent of which being confusion. "Uh… huh. You're early."

"Well, wasn't it you who said that if you're on time you're ten minutes late? What can I say—you give stellar advice," Sonic fawned, throwing a wink and two finger guns in Shadow's general direction. He pointedly never broke eye-contact with Shadow, voice squeaking occasionally from trying to maintain the strange tone he was going for.

Okay, what the fuck is he doing?

"...Right," Shadow's brow furrowed at Sonic, as he sat down and began to unpack his sewing stuff. "You did read through the handout, yes?"

"Oh, yes, of course," Sonic gave a light breathy laugh, before looking at Shadow with a goofily serious—rather, a seriously goofy, look. "Intimately."

Shadow had a physical reaction to that one, fumbling his bobbins and almost scattering a package of buttons everywhere. If he thought Sonic was acting weird this morning…

He turned away from Sonic's constant gaze, desperate to change course before Sonic could take this weird act any further. "Well, uh—" He stopped. Cleared his throat. Tried again. "I hope you, uh, retained at least some of the information. We have work to do." Shadow grabbed a small case of needles, grabbing one for himself then sliding the rest over to Sonic, who slowly slid them towards himself, continuing his creepy ceaseless eye contact.

"Have you ever threaded a needle before," Shadow asked, grabbing a blue-colored thread to match a pair of socks that had holes in them.

"I mean, I just gotta stick the thread inside the needle," he chuckled again, cooly grabbing a black-colored thread. "How hard can it be," he winked at Shadow, taking the string and beginning his first attempt at needle threading.

Sonic may have fantastic hand-eye coordination and reflexes to boot, but fine motor skills were something he lacked. In spades. He took the thread, letting it limply hang, vaguely aiming at the tiny eye of the needle. He squinted one eye, fruitlessly trying to shove the delicate thread into the just as delicate hole.

It was becoming pathetic. Well, more pathetic. Shadow took what he assumed to be the first deep breath of many today. "First, cut the amount of thread you need. I'm going to do the more complicated fixes like darning and patching. You'll handle the buttons and seams, so you'll need about as much thread as your arm length for now."

Shadow demonstrated for Sonic with his own thread, and Sonic, at the very least a quick learner, followed his example, pulling out a good length of thread, and then cutting it. "Next, take one end of the thread, and hold it straight. I usually just use my mouth to wet it a little and pull it straight," he said, doing so in turn.

"Oh, really now," Sonic continued to use his obnoxiously foux suave voice, eyeing Shadow… seductively? It was hard to tell, considering Sonic's apparent idea of seductive was mugging it up and occasionally letting out a creepy breathy chuckle.

Shadow, beginning to feel as though Sonic was mocking him, blushed at the embarrassment of having his words misconstrued. "Gah, just—it's just to keep the thread from fraying." He placed his gaze firmly back on his thread, determined to keep a straight face. "Once it's… stiff," God why aren't there any better words. Every synonym in the english language was escaping him.

Sonic, breaking out of his weird flirtatious character, let out a genuine laugh at that, ready to fall into one of his giggling fits. Shadow, face scrunching in a mix of anger, embarrassment and his fading composure, put his needle and thread down, getting up.

"Alright, I've had enough of this. If you're going to just keep sitting there mocking me the entire time, then you can damn well do this assignment on your own." Shadow, refusing to look at Sonic, began to pack up his stuff.

Sonic snapped out of his laughing fit. Shit! This wasn't how it was supposed to go. He didn't plan for this. He was sure he did exactly what Knuckles had told him at lunch. He had even tried to copy the look Knuckles always had when he flirted. Did he do it wrong?

Then again, he hadn't always seen it work for Knuckles either.

"Wait, wait, no! Sorry, sorry, I was just playing around. I, uh, got a little carried away. I'll, uh, dial it back some, okay? I promise," he stood up, this time meeting Shadow's eyes with something more genuine, something remorseful and almost pleading.

Shadow, poised to berate Sonic further, looked back down at his bag, taking one more deep breath, letting it go slowly. This shithead is going to run me ragged. "This is your last chance. I do not put up with nonsense."

"Yes, understood. No more nonsense. Zero traces of nonsense here." Sonic spoke quickly, the promise rushing out of his mouth, some sense of anxiety and desperation twisting his words.

Shadow rolled his eyes. He didn't quite believe that claim, but they had an assignment to finish.

He slid back into his booth seat as Sonic regained his usual relaxed posture, his shoulders relaxing into something more natural.

Well, whatever the kid was up to seemed to have passed now, at least. If they could just get through this assignment in peace, then he would consider that a victory and they would never mention this again.

Finally able to properly thread his needle, Sonic watched as Shadow walked him through the steps of a basic stitch, following each maneuver as best he could. Once he had finished repairing his first seam, Sonic beamed at his own accomplishment. "I did it! Haha, check it!"

Sonic held his work out to Shadow, who was still wary of the kids potential to make this afternoon more uncomfortable. "Hmph. Passable. Your stitches are too far apart."

"Aye aye, captain," Sonic saluted, moving onto his next piece. Shadow watched Sonic starting up again. He seemed to be taking Shadows direction to heart. He had this look of intense concentration, as though he was willing the stitches to move closer. With each successful stitch, he'd grin at his little victory.

Shadow felt… relieved to see the kid revert back to his normal self. Maybe even… happy? It was better than whatever odd versions of Sonic he had already dealt with today, at least.

Eventually the space between them fell quiet as they each turned their eyes to their own fabric, repairing rips, patching holes, and replacing lost buttons.

Sonic squirmed as he noticed Shadow's posture, tense even now, like he was ready to dash away as soon as Sonic spoke again. He continued to replay his "flirting" display from earlier. Maybe he had laid it on too thick.

Well, he had definitely laid it on too thick.

Desperate to keep his promise, but woefully unsure how, he had rushed to seek advice from the most flirtatious person he knew, the perpetually-single, but self-proclaimed ladies' man, Knuckles.

Amy was right, he wasn't cut out for this. So, his plan was just to imitate the only real-world flirtation he had seen through Knuckles' high school escapades. When he asked Knuckles about it at lunch today, the joy of getting to share his supposed knowledge apparently overpowered the shock of Sonic being the one to ask this question at all, because he had rolled right into a monologue about compliments and subtle innuendos and smoldering (a good smolder was the most important ingredient, according to Knuckles).

"Now, it is essential you remember this bit," Knuckles had said as he finished his lecture from on high, "Flirting, at the end of the day, is more an invitation as well as a request to join in that other person's life. Women aren't just some trophy or conquest you're aiming to add to your collection. Your aim should be to learn who she is, see life from her point of view and grow as a person from her influence."

Both he and Tails had balked with their mediocre cafeteria chicken halfway to their mouths.

"What?" Knuckles had shrugged. "Just because I'm a meathead doesn't mean I can't be a feminist."

Sonic sighed as he pulled the needle through the fabric again. Well, clearly none of Knuckles general advice had worked. Though, that last bit, Sonic could still give a try. Who is Shadow? What was his life like, underneath his disaffected lone-wolf act?

His gaze trailed to Shadow, crimson red eyes focused as he carefully made stitch after meticulous stitch. His brow furrowed slightly as he neatly pulled the seams together, biting his cheek slightly as he concentrated.

If Sonic looked long enough, he could almost see what Silver found so appealing. Maybe.

Sonic frowned. How could he get through to this guy? Knuckles' Failproof Flirting Techniques™ actually proved to be pretty prone to failure.

Well maybe don't be Knuckles. Maybe just be Sonic.

The sharp sound of scissors broke the silence as Shadow snipped his latest length of thread, carefully folding a newly-repaired red shirt and placing on top of his finished pieces.

"Y'know," Sonic started. He could almost feel Shadow freeze from across the table, afraid of a sequel to his earlier antics. "My little bro, Tails, is always changing his favorite color—ever since he was little." Shadow tilted his head, finally glancing up to look at Sonic. Not what he was expecting. "First he was all about yellow stuff, then it was nothing but purple. And I don't even wanna remember his chartreuse phase. But for me, it's always been red—as long as I can remember." He pointed at his shoes as he stuck one leg out from under the table, grinning. "That's why my Soaps are so lucky! They always lead me right."

Shadow's eyes flicked from the shoes back to Sonic. "...Because they're red," he deadpanned.

"Yup," Sonic said, leaning back, feeling lighter already without the weight of having to keep up the highly flirtatious act. "Never leave home without 'em. I dunno, red's just always seemed to be a good color for me."

Shadow absently traced the line of his next stitch with his free hand. "As silly a reason as any to believe in luck, I suppose," he murmured.

"You got anything like that?"

Shadow blinked, pausing. "Excuse me?"

"Y'know, like something you believe is lucky. Silly or not." Sonic continued working on the button up bereft of half it's buttons, almost forgetting that's what they were here to do in the first place. "Or a color you've always been drawn too, even if you can't really explain why."

Shadow fully stopped in his motions for a second, giving Sonic a confused look from his side of the booth. He almost opened his mouth to say something, but stopped before pulling his focus back down again. "I don't see why you'd care to know," he responded instead.

Sonic laughed with a snort, "Well, I guess some people would call it an ice breaker. And considering how much ice there is between us, gotta start somewhere y'know."

Taking a sip from his now tepid coffee cup, he continued his work on the loose hem of some dress pants. "The ice you are on is thin enough. Don't get distracted, I don't have all day."

Having halted his progress on the last button of his shirt, Sonic snapped back to work having been called out. He clumsily tied off the thread of his last button, cutting the thread as close as he could manage. Lazily folding the shirt, he threw it into his messy pile.

Grabbing the next garment with a busted seam, he sighed, "Why do we even gotta fix all these anyway? If they're so damaged, why not just buy new clothes?"

Shadow, having already spent enough energy on outrage and indignancy for a semester, just kept his eyes on his work, attempting to formulate a civil response to educate his juvenile counterpart. "The actual answer is that this is an assignment and we have to do this for a grade." He said matter-of-factly. "But more broadly—did you learn nothing from our last assignment? New clothes, even at more affordable stores, can eat away at your budget in the blink of an eye," Shadow's tone of voice carefully had less ire in it than in the past. For better or worse, he was starting to get used to Sonic's brash ignorance as a side-effect of his inexperience. It wasn't fair to be angry over ignorance, he supposed. Well, certain amounts of ignorance, anyway.

"You have to make some sacrifices when you aren't living on your parent's dime," he finished his thought with a sip from his coffee cup. It was a little snide, maybe, but anything he could do to give Sonic a little perspective would be for the better. The kid had a long road ahead of him, and he was ill-equipped to traverse it.

This hit Sonic. He grimaced, eyes downcast. He wasn't a total idiot; he knew how privileged he was, being taken care of by his parents for as long as he could remember, even now. It wasn't something he ever had to worry about, really, but something about the way Shadow threw it at him—as a critique of his character—got under his quills.

But it wasn't like he was a horrible person for it, right? He wasn't some snob rich kid running around bragging about his family's wealth. Not like they had much of it anyway.

But isn't this just as bad, something prodded, a nagging thought in the back of his mind. Lazing around, refusing to change, coasting by on nothing.

Sonic gritted his teeth, trying to focus on placing stitch after stitch after stitch after stitch—

You can't ignore everything forever, you know. Running isn't always the answer.

Stitch and pull the thread through. Stitch and pull. Stitch and pull. Stitch. Pull. Stitch.

Coward.

"OW!" A sharp prick of pain pulled him back into his body. A small dot of red welled up in his thumb, pain centering on where his needle and punctured the tip of his finger. "Gah, damnit!"

He dropped the half-fixed hoodie held in his free hand and grimaced at his tiny wound.

Wow, couldn't help but fuck this simple task up too, huh?

A frown flickered across his face as the world narrowed into that one thought.

Shadow, who had been a little weirded out by Sonic's sudden silence, snapped up at this.

Sonic didn't even notice Shadow rummaging around in his bag until he was at Sonic's side, wordlessly taking his wrist and pulling the injured hand towards him.

"Here," he said softly. A bandaid was unwrapped and placed over his little prick of an injury. Honestly, it probably didn't require the bandaid at all. But Sonic seemed more upset by it than he would have expected.

Sonic watched quietly as the bandaid was wrapped around his absentminded pinprick, with more care than he thought Shadow possessed. He only now became aware of the open first-aid kit open on the other side of the table. If Sonic had his wits about him, he could have laughed—of course Shadow would carry these around.

He watched Shadow's brow furrow as he finished his (probably unnecessary) task.

He curled in on himself, eyes flicking from Shadow's ever-stoic face to his hand still lingering on his wrist. "Sorry," he mumbled.

There was barely a breath of silence between them before more words tumbled out of Sonic, a break in some proverbial dam. He didn't know where this rush of emotion and panic came from, but it took over any control he had had over his words.

"Sorry I messed this up again. I tried—I really did. And I'm sorry you're stuck with an idiot like me as your partner and you have to drag me along because I don't know things and I can't do anything right and—"

Shadow's fingers tightened on his wrist, ever so slightly, making Sonic's eyes snap back up, meeting the confused red eyes before him.

Shadow paused, taking in Sonic's wide eyes, his worried frown, ears flattened back against his head. Where had that come from? Sonic seemed pretty unaffected by most things, and this rushed monologue of self-criticism contrasted with everything Shadow knew about the freshman.

Which, he guessed he had to admit, wasn't much.

He opened his mouth to respond with something, anything to end this painfully awkward silence. He tried to remember what he would do when Maria was younger, frustrated and crying over some small straw that broke the camel's back. (He briefly lingered on the irony of using the same strategies for his kid sister for the full-fledged nineteen-year-old in front of him.)

But before he could do anything—

"Shadow, are CarboHydrolic cells a thing," Sonic asked, barely above a whisper.

Whatever Shadow was going to say screeched to a sudden halt. "...What?" He almost glared at him, nearly scoffing at what he assumed was some stumbling attempt at a joke. But something about the way Sonic spoke now, fragile and shaky—something was different here, off in a way he hadn't seen. "No, uh, they aren't"

Sonic shook his head. "Yeah, figures. Sorry. Never mind." He let his hand slip from Shadow's, whose empty hand fell loosely to the side, suddenly very aware of the missing weight, the absent warmth. "It's stupid," he muttered towards the wall.

Shadow took in Sonic's slumped form, fully turned forward now, head down. He felt frozen, bewildered, at a loss. Besides the brief flash of frustration over last week's mock-budget, this was the first complete slip of Sonic's 'Cool Guy Track Star' schtick Shadow had ever seen.

Shadow frowned. Something had cracked. He hadn't expected it from a kid like Sonic, but Shadow had seen this, had felt this before. Anxiety and self doubt becoming too overwhelming to bear. Shadow had enough trouble dealing with it himself, after all these years. But this must be a new sensation for someone like Sonic. What could have brought this on, broken his annoyingly spunky attitude enough to cause him this much grief?

His eyes looked to their respective piles of clothes, gaze running over Sonic's lines of crooked, uneven stitches. Only one garment lay unfinished between them.

Shadow let out a breath. Whatever was going on with Sonic, he felt it unwise to prod any further today. "We'll call this finished for now," Shadow declared, moving back to his side. The kid needed some time to himself to cool down.

Sonic didn't say a word, packing his own things, as Shadow gathered up the clothes and placed everything back in his bag, slinging it back on his shoulder.

He paused there, hands in his jacket pockets, a weird limbo in the space between them.

"Sky blue."

Sonic looked up, head tilted. "Huh?"

Shadow kept his eyes down as he spoke again. "My favorite color—sky blue." Flashes of a dress played in his mind, the skirt ruffling as it was twirled by its wearer. "That color…puts me at ease. It's...calming, I suppose"

Sonic watched as his partner's gaze softened into something bittersweet and faraway. He smiled softly.

Shadow flicked a glance back at Sonic—the briefest of moments—before turning on his heel and walking away.