Sonic/Shadow
Shadow hurriedly grabbed the phone at his desk, quickly calling in for backup, and running to grab a wheelchair for the passed out fox in Sonic's arms. Just as quickly, a team of nurses rushed up to Sonic, asking him too many questions at too great a speed for his still-intoxicated and incredibly panicked brain to keep up with.
"Um, he drank a lot, and then he threw up," Sonic stammered, slowly realizing that they wanted him to put Tails down. "Age? Uh, h-he's 13. Miles Prower. Oh, I'm his brother! M-my name's Soni—uh—Maurice Prower." Sonic watched helplessly as they began to wheel him through the swinging doors, into the ER. He started to follow, only to be met with a gentle yet forceful hand.
"W-wait, I need to be with him," Sonic stammered, trying to push past whatever force was trying to stop him.
"You need to stay out here." His frantic eyes eventually noticed the owner of the hand. Shadow gave him a serious yet neutral look, trying to guide Sonic towards the seats of the lobby.
Sonic kept his eyes trained on the double doors. "He's going to be okay, right? Oh god, please tell me he's going to be okay," He begged, pleading eyes locked with Shadow's. It would be irresponsible for any medical professional to promise anything, Shadow knew that. It didn't make it any less difficult for him to leave a worried brother in the dark.
"The nurses are going to look at him, but you need to wait out here," Shadow calmly talked Sonic down, as an older rabbit lady came over to them. Shadow backed away, letting the rabbit woman take his place.
"Don't worry Mr. Prower, we're going to do everything we can for him, alright," she reassured him with a calm, motherly voice. "Just take a seat here and fill out these forms. We'll come get you once we know his condition, okay?"
Slowly situating himself in his seat, mind still struggling to keep up, he nodded silently, shakily taking hold of the clipboard Shadow returned with. His eyes were still wide and brimmed with tears that threatened to fall, and could hardly focus on the board in his hands.
"We're going to go help with your brother, and we'll return to update you soon, okay," the rabbit lady asked sweetly. Sonic nodded shakily, doing his best to remember any of the information the form was asking of him, with no success. Shadow and the rabbit lady backed away, and disappeared through the ER doors.
The waiting room fell quiet once more, save for the sound of the T.V. and the tapping of Sonic's trembling foot
Time crawled.
The clock ticked the seconds away. It was 1:23 a.m.
Sonic stared at the clock, a forlorn look in his eyes. His foot tapped away on it's own time. He'd given up on trying to fill out the form beside him.
Sitting still was difficult. It's not like he could do anything. But it still ate at him.
He could do nothing but sit and hope.
The swinging doors finally opened. Shadow, now finished assisting the nurses, was returning to his position. He looked towards the distraught hedgehog across from him, eyes fixated on the clock.
It wasn't uncommon for students to find themselves in the ER of the Station Square Municipal Hospital. It was less common for one so young to find themselves so dangerously intoxicated without the fully developed system to handle it.
Shadow's own eyes found themselves focused on Sonic's troubled face. There wasn't a single trace of the usual bright and peppy face he wore. This one was broken. This one was frightened. It pained Shadow. He'd once worn that look.
Unable to help the one you love. Unsure of their fate…
Sonic pulled his arms tighter around himself, looking helplessly trapped in the waiting room's rigid wooden chair, quills a mess, eyes open as wide as they could be, perhaps searching for any kind of comfort in the slowly moving hands of the clock. His fingers could feel where Tails' vomit had dried on his arm, crusting together in disgusting clumps on his sleeves, soaking through his lucky shoes. But it was all white noise.
He didn't even seem aware that Shadow was there.
Shadow furrowed his brow. He tried to recall the pain he'd once felt, sitting in a very similar room awaiting whatever terrible news would come next. He remembered it clearly, Rouge's comforting shoulder that soaked up his tears.
Grabbing a warmed blanket from behind the front desk (kept for situations like this—panicked family members trapped in a state of shock), Shadow cautiously walked to Sonic's side. He didn't notice Shadow seating himself beside him, far more focused on willing the clock to keep moving the night along.
"Here," Shadow held out the blanket towards Sonic. Startled by Shadow's sudden appearance, Sonic turned towards him, trying to regain some of his composure.
"Oh, Shadow! Don't, uh, worry about me, I'm fine. Um, how's Tails?" There was a shake in his normally confident one.
Shadow, unwrapping the blanket, tossed it gently over Sonic's shoulders, obviously too out of sorts to think straight. "He's fine, stable. His sodium levels are quite low, but that's nothing an IV drip can't help. He was nowhere near alcohol poisoning, thankfully, it just shocked his system."
It was unreal. Tails was okay. Tails was going to make it through. Tails had looked like he was on death's door and it was all your fault. "Heh, that's really good, haha," he gave a breathy laugh, trying to force a smile on his face.
That floaty feeling came back, like he was outside of himself. But it wasn't fun this time.
"Haha, what a night," Sonic began to laugh. "Your only brother in the ER because of you. Relatable, right?" Everything about this situation was so ridiculous. It wasn't funny, yet still he laughed. He couldn't hold it back. "Hahaha, big bro of the year! Hahahaha…." Laughter just forced its way out of his throat, strained, hoarse, and bordering on wailing. Shadow frowned as Sonic spiraled further into some kind of mania.
Sonic tried to reign it in, but the harder he grabbed hold of composure, the harder it kicked him back towards hysteria. He bent over, held his face in his hands, desperate to make the laughing stop.
The laughter morphed into cries and tears seeped through his fingers.
Shadow watched on, frozen, unsure what to do.
Hesitantly, he put a hand lightly to Sonic's back, gently rubbing between his heaving shoulders, trying to soothe him as best he could. Eventually, Sonic was left gasping for air, hyperventilating.
"Sonic, you need to breathe slowly, okay," Shadow tried to pull Sonic back up into a more stable posture, placing one hand on his back, his other to his stomach, instinctually falling back on his medical training. "Cup your hands around your mouth and breath in. Hold it," Shadow waited, counting 10 seconds in his mind, "Breathe out slowly."
Sonic coughed, still too frantic to hold his breath longer than a few moments. Shadow kept coaching him, and Sonic followed along, his voice, the weight of his hands...grounding him in some way. Eventually, Sonic found his breath again, though his head was still light and swimming through a pool of beer.
"Th-thanks, Shadow," Sonic huffed out. He bent back over, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, breathing slowly returning to a normal rhythm.
Shadow began to pull his hand away from Sonic's back, giving the hedgehog some room to breathe.
" … Shadow," Sonic murmured, barely above a whisper.
"Yes," Shadow answered in a gentle and even tone.
"Can you… keep doing that… it helps," he muttered, eyes still staring firmly at the ground.
Shadow's hand hovered in the air between them, a bit thrown off by this. Then, without him fully making the decision to, he placed his hand back in the spot it had occupied moments before, making small circles with his palm on Sonic's back. Through the blanket and his shirt, he could feel the bumps of concentrated quills, flattened out some, less tension in his muscles there.
They sat like this, for a while it felt.
"Why…" Sonic mumbled to the ground.
"Hmm?" Shadow inquired.
"Why am I such a failure." His voice lost any light it had left.
Shadow froze, hand stilling on his back, stunned by Sonic's words—shaky, unguarded, helpless. "What do you—"
Sonic gave another self-deprecating chuckle. "I mean, it's obvious, isn't it," he choked out. "Like, what am I even doing? You've said as much yourself." He smiled, a hollow, faraway thing. "I thought I knew what I wanted, but...fuck, I guess I don't. I'm just some directionless asshole who doesn't know how to do anything and I constantly fuck everything up and make everyone else help me and fix my mistakes and—"
He let out a gasp for air before more words came rushing out of his mouth, tearing himself down at lightning speed.
"And, shit, I'm supposed to be Tails' big brother. I'm supposed to be someone he can fucking look up to for god's sake! But what does he get stuck with instead? Some dumbass step-brother who's so fucking self-centered and immature that he can't even look past his own shit to see something is clearly wrong, fuck—" Sonic worked himself up into something of a frenzy, half-shouting by the end, tears now streaming freely down his cheeks.
He was panting now as the tirade finally stopped, as if it took something physical out of him.
"No one even wants me around. Knuckles and Tails are the only ones who tolerate me. Everyone hates me…" He bowed his head once more, hands clutching the back of his neck. "Even you can't stand me," he sheepishly whispered, between shaking breaths.
Shadow's stomach sank. Hearing Sonic repeat some of the very insults he'd thrown at him filled him with shame. All this time, Sonic had been holding all these anxieties in, bottling them up and burying them for a later day. And he'd kept antagonizing him simply because he was 'bothersome.'
Once more he placed his hand to Sonic's back.
"I don't hate you, Sonic," Shadow stated, softly, surprising even himself with the admission.
Sonic bit out a defeated laugh. "You don't have to lie to me just because I'm sad," he whispered.
"I don't hate you," he repeated, as firm as the first time. "I've… never been the best at communicating with others. And I… can be a jerk sometimes. I don't… like…" Shadow paused, taking a deep breath. "… People are difficult." Sonic turned his head slightly, eyeing Shadow, who, for the first time ever, had a genuine look on his face. Not indifference, distaste or any of his general apathetic masks. It was… real, his eyes squinted in embarrassment, mouth sporting a sympathetic frown.
"But, you're always so… bright and…persistent. You're able to talk to a complete stranger as though they were a long lost friend," Shadow sighed, a small smile touching the corners of his mouth. "I suppose… I envy that about you. Or, more likely, I'm just too stubborn to let you win so easily."
Sonic let out a single light snort, sniffling, "I could have told you that much."
Shadow chuckled. "My issues aside…you… aren't hopeless. Life is…difficult, at best. And it's like that for everyone—even golden boy track stars." Shadow kept his eyes on the tile next to his feet, refusing to meet Sonic's teary-eyed look, unable to handle the weight of his gaze and his sudden, disarming honesty all at once.
God, how did Rouge handle me when I was like this? Shadow sighed. "Emotions aren't…my strong suit. I don't know if I'm the best person to be taking advice from. But..." he paused, thinking back for a moment, "You...can't spend your life stressing over things you can't control." He racked his brain for something he thought the lost teen would need to hear. "Don't agonize over some ideal of who you think you should be. Just be...Sonic, and try to fix what mistakes you can along the way. Growth is work, yes. But it's...necessary." Shadow shook his head, pausing in the tense silence that stretched between them. How did people do this? "Sorry, I can't… I don't know if that...helps or not."
Sitting up, Sonic wiped away some of the tears still clinging to his eyes, a soft, trembling chuckle escaped his lips at Shadow's sudden onset awkwardness. "No, no, I—thanks, Shadow. That means a lot to me."
"Ah… yes… uh, it's okay, don't, uh, worry about it," Shadow stumbled through his attempt at comfort. He glanced around at anywhere but Sonic, suddenly feeling uncomfortable and looking for an exit. "Well, I'm going to, uh—"
Without a word, or any warning, Sonic leaned over his chair's arm, pulling Shadow into a hug. Stunned, Shadow, eyes firmly open now, hovered his hands. Sonic's arms were wrapped firmly around Shadow's neck, holding him close, notching his head on Shadow's shoulder.
"Thank you," he whispered, shaking with each breath.
Shadow wasn't the best at reciprocating physical contact. He rarely hugged anyone, preferring to keep his bubble intact. But, something told him Sonic needed this...
Bringing his arms under Sonic's, he hugged him, lightly, patting his back.
Sonic eased off some first, but lingered close, as if Shadow's touch was the only thing keeping him here.
Silence hung between their breaths for a moment before Sonic broke it.
"Can I see him?" He sniffed and shifted to wipe at his still wet eyes. "I know you said Tails is okay, but I just...need to see him."
Shadow nodded softly. "Of course," he murmured. But for a few beats, neither of them made a move, both of them quietly hesitant to pull away from the other.
But eventually, he pulled his hands from their newfound home on the curve of Sonic's rib cage and stood. Sonic slowly followed, pulling the blanket tighter around his shoulders.
He stood a bit straighter now, at least. And his limbs were no longer trembling. Shadow let out a breath he wasn't aware he'd been holding.
The door opened again, snapping both of their attentions to the nice rabbit lady from earlier. "Mr. Prower?"
Sonic stuttered out a few half-sounds before settling on, "Uh, y-yes?"
She gestured back to the hallway behind her. "Your brother's still resting, but if you want to follow me, I can take you to see him," she offered.
A shot of panic jumped into Sonic's throat. He imagined Tails' form swaddled in the stark white of hospital sheets, hooked up to tubes and IV drips and machines, looking too small, too frail, too—
His hand reached out to grab Shadow's. "Can...can he come with me?"
The nurse paused there, seeming unsure at what answer to give.
But Shadow did it for her.
Shadow gave a squeeze to his hand, pulling Sonic back to reality. Sonic's eyes jumped to his.
"It's all right," he whispered. He gently pulled Sonic's hand from his, letting his fingers linger on his wrist. "I have to stay here, okay? I'll be right out here if you need me," he assured, keeping his tone soft, lest Sonic have another breakdown. "I'll...come check on you at the end of my shift, all right?"
Sonic slowly nodded, hesitating before stepping towards the door and following the nurse towards the room where his recovering brother lay.
He gave one last look back at Shadow, eyes still shining with a million emotions, before the door swung shut and cut off their view of each other.
Shadow let out a heavy breath as he plopped into the desk chair behind him. The empty space of the lobby before him suddenly felt too vacant, somehow, too hollow. His eyes fell to where he and Sonic had been sitting, now just two empty chairs. He swallowed the impulse to follow the kid, to follow the familiar route to where his brother's room was.
Shadow rubbed at his temples, exhaustion once again setting in. He sighed, looking to the ceiling and closing his eyes. Something about Sonic's unanticipated breakdown had...unsettled him, to say the least, and his thoughts lingered on the kid's well-being in spite of himself. He scrubbed a hand down his face.
He was growing tired of hospitals and tears and anxiety and unknowns.
He was…tired. They both were.