"What was he doing at Rouge's?"
Sonic chuckled, arms crossed behind his head in his hammock. "I think he just crashed there for the night," He replied, "Poor guy seemed really hungover."
Tails rolled his eyes, raising his welder's mask to cast a look to his older brother. "He seemed pretty coherent when talked, to me at least," he grumbled in the final part before dropping the mask and returning to his work.
Knuckles gave a swing, hitting the sandbag and shaking the chains connecting above to the hanger ceiling. "Huh, didn't know he even drank." He turned to the seemingly slumbering hedgehog, "Maybe he is normal."
"Told ya," Sonic smiled, covering his mouth and yawning.
The three heroes hung around Sonic and Tails's shared hanger- a large refurbished workshop decorated in past achievements amongst the three. Old robot parts scattered around, photographs and newspaper clippings pasted on walls like posters, and in the center Tails's trusting plane sat parked while the fox tinkered away making adjustments.
Knuckles pushed back the sandbag, swinging back with its own weight while he prepped another attack, and Sonic swung happily in his hammock beside the fox hard at work on his plane. The echidna turned away to walk over and stand besides his two friends with arms crossed. "You know Sonic, you never said why you wanted to see Shadow anyway."
"Maybe it's on purpose." Sonic responded, feet kicking away. "Naw I'm kidding, it's nothing. Just wanted to check up on him is all."
Tails again rolled his eyes behind the mask, sparks flying off the metals.
"That doesn't answer my question." Knuckles glared, grabbing the swinging hammock and almost causing Sonic to roll out of it. "You've been trying to get a hold of him for a while now, and he's an agent. He's keeping secrets, Sonic."
Sonic turned up to the echidna with a questioning look. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means whenever he shows up, bad stuff happens." Knuckle said flat out. "I'm sorry, but I just don't trust the guy."
"He helped us stop Eggman loads of times, though!" Sonic countered, swinging his legs out from the hammock. "And Rouge trusts him! Isn't that enough for you, knucklehead?" He smirked, seeing his friend shy away at the bat's mention.
At this, Tails raised his mask to join in. "He has a point though, Sonic." He said, "I heard that Rouge has G.U.N. keep tabs on him weekly. That there isn't a thing he does that they don't keep track of in case he decides to go back to Eggman." He stood up, hands on his hips. "You know, the crazy guy who's been trying to destroy us for actual years?"
Sonic sighed, rolling his eyes playfully to his two friends. "Guys, I think you're being a little judgy. I mean, it's Shadow!" He walked past Knuckles to a wall, a newspaper pasted to it highlighting the events following Eggman's attack on the moon. He pointed to the picture, him and Shadow floating side by side in their super forms. "The same scary agent who helped me save the world!" He then added, all while giving a small glare between the two. "Who gave his life, by the way, to do so."
Tails frowned, turning back to his plane as Knuckles turned away and swung his arms at his sides. Sonic walked back over. "Am I a little too forgiving sometimes, yeah maybe, but I can't see him as anything but just a little grouchy." He finished, hopping back into his hammock and returning to his position. "Cut him some slack."
"But he doesn't like us." Tails complained, crossing his arms with his welder in his hand. "He hates me, he hates Knuckles. He doesn't want to hang out, doesn't like anything."
"Aw, he's just shy." Sonic waved off the comment, followed by Tails sighing and lowered his weld mask over his face. In his head, Sonic imagined the black hedgehog before him and smiled thoughtfully. "I think you both would be surprised at the other side of him."
Knuckles laughed, taking a heavy swing at the sandbag. "Yeah right! Have you seen this so called 'softer side'-"
"Think fast."
"Wha-ow!"
Sonic sniggered, Knuckles stumbling back after the bag came back and knocked him backwards. "And yes, I have."
"Psh," Tails muttered behind the flashing of his welding. "When was this and where was I?"
"No, really." Knuckles said, rubbing his head and glaring at the inanimate punching bag. "What is on the other side of a cold rockhead like him?"
Sonic opened one eye to glare at the echidna. "Funny, you're calling someone a rockhead?"
"Sonic…" Tails groaned, taking the welding mask off completely and removing his welder's equipment. "We're just worried, Shadow is just too unpredictable." He explained, hands out. "He's worked with Eggman, that weird evil death starfish thing from a few years back…" He trailed off, cringing at the memory.
"Not to mention all the times he beat us up!" Knuckles complained, "He always has his stupid chaos energy that he uses. Those chaos spears burn like crazy!"
Tails stonewalled the comment, before turning back to the languishing hedgehog. "Sonic, think about it from my perspective. I've had to watch him threaten to kill you on more than one occasion-at one point almost succeeding."
Sonic turned over in his hammock, grimacing at his younger brother's words. "It's nothing against you, I just don't see what you say you see in him. And, I don't understand where that's even coming from."
At that, Sonic rose from the hammock and jumped to his feet. "You know what? You're right," he said, turning away. "Both of you, but I'll show you!"
At that, he sped off in a blink of an eye, leaving a gust in his wake and blowing the hammock around. Tails shrugged and let out a sigh, shaking his head and turning to Knuckles staring off after the hedgehog. "What is up with him? Why doesn't he get we're just looking out for him?"
Knuckles walked over to lay a hand on the younger fox's shoulder. "Hey, don't worry about it. He probably just needs to clear his head. I'm sure he'll come back later and see what we mean."
Tails nodded, still unsure but decided to cast it aside and returned to his plane.
—
I'll show them. He thought. They'll see.
Sonic sped through trees in the outskirts of Central City, leaves and shrubs shaking as he shifted the air around them as he passed. The crisp feeling of the air cracking in his pace brought his spirits back up, the smell of the grass and leaves appearing as speedlines in his peripheral vision, and the warmth of the sun shining in his stead.
Why couldn't they see what he saw he would think to himself. It was obvious to him, Shadow was just as much of one of their friends as any of the other mobians they'd come in contact with over the years-not to mention one they've known the longest!
However, he couldn't shake the doubt from his thoughts. The warnings from Tails left him uncomfortable due to the truth that laid within them. He skid for a few meters before kicking off a large stone embankment, before rushing off in another direction.
The times they'd encounter the black hedgehog on opposite ground. The stare he casted, the fangs clenched in his direction. That power he felt in his attacks, the harshness in his words, they were all there in the proof.
But what if that just wasn't who the hedgehog was anymore? It had been years since Shadow defected to the enemy, long since he had finally stood up to that Eggheaded doctor and his pack of goons. He was just plain old Shadow now…right?
Sonic slid to a stop atop a large rocky landmass and scanned the mountain range, peaks as far as he could see before spotting the ocean beyond them, the city far behind him. "Where could he be?" He mumbled to himself.
Again, he took off in another direction, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake.
Maybe it was just in his own good nature that he couldn't see the signs that his friends saw clearly in Shadow. It could be possible, he could admit that he was a bit wishy washy in finding the bright side of life. Sonic could swear that Shadow was different now, he felt it in his chest whenever he was near. He could sense it in his eyes, though most times shooting a death stare in his direction, he swore they held something sweeter behind them.
And that was when he felt it.
"Aha!" He exclaimed, turning right at a particular place in the forest, west of the southern entrance to Central City. He hopped up and jumped from treetop to tree top before coming to a small river bank.
And at the end was a small lake, where he spotted a small cottage.
Beaming bright, Sonic rushed forward to greet the owner.
—
"Take one?" Shadow asked the communicator on his wrist, "...but It says to take three?"
"Take one, I promise," Rouge chuckled, "With that stuff you don't want to take too much. Humans have to take more since they are larger, that would be enough to comatose one of us."
Shadow rolled his eyes. "Whatever, as long as it makes the headache stop." He took a small pill into his mouth and brought a glass of water to his lips.
"Are you going to tell me why you left Blue on my doorstep this morning," Rouge asked through a yawn, "or is that another one of those questions I have to ask over drinks?"
Shadow grumbled over the rim of the glass, drinking the water and swallowing with a breath of relief. "I told you, I was leaving and he happened to show up. Probably just looking for you."
"Nuh-uh." She rescinded. "That boy has been hounding me for info about you for the last week. Odds are, you just happened to be there for him."
"Then there's nothing to say," Shadow responded. "I left before he could say anything of note. Besides, the little fox boy was there and was irking me."
"Aw, he's cute. Leave him alone." Rouge pouted through the communicator. "Well who knows? Now that he knows you're around, you might get your wish after all."
Shadow eyed the voice on his wrist, laying down on his couch in the only room of his home. "What wish?" He asked, worried. "What are you talking about?"
"Drink for your thoughts? Have I said too much?" She giggled, Shadow smacking a fist down on the cushions. "Guess so! Talk to you later!"
"ROUGE!" Shadow snapped at the end transmission message flashing across the LED screen, before groaning and laying back into his rest. "Damn it. At least I can sleep this mess off-"
Shadow was then interrupted by three quick knocks at his front door. The black hedgehog blinked off into space, pondering what he did to deserve the timing of such shoddy luck.
He hopped over the back of the couch and rushed to the front door, peering through the peephole he'd installed weeks prior. Outside he could barely make out the lush green around his home and the lake it resided by.
"Hmm, nothing." He mumbled.
He stared longer, in an instant a large green eye appeared before the eyehole and sent him reeling back.
He sent a surge of chaos energy in a spear at the door, burning a hole in its center to the outside with a loud crack! The hole sizzled, burnt and blackened at the edges and fading out to the brown of the normal chocolate brown of the cottage.
"Uh…heya, Shads." Sonic's face peeked in shyly through the hole, giving a nervous wave. "I uh, like the new doggy door! Didn't know you had a dog."
Shadow scoured at the hedgehog, unmoving from his spot on the floor. "I don't," was all he could reply with.
"Ah," Sonic nodded, tapping away on his legs. "Well…I could help fix-"
"What," Shadow spoke through clenched teeth, "do you want?"
Sonic pouted, hands behind his back and kicked at the gravel at his feet. "I uh…can I come in?" He asked, a sheepish grin on his face. "It's kinda hard to say it like this."
What followed was a loud slap of Shadow's hand meeting his own forehead before dragging it down his face and breathing deep. After getting up from the floor, Shadow walked over and pulled the door open, only for it to come up off its hinges and fall into the house. Sonic closed his eyes and self berated at the black hedgehog's bitter mutterings as he leaned the door against one of the walls of his home.
Inside Shadow's house wasn't a whole lot, just a large black couch in the center, and a small kitchen area in one corner with a microwave oven and mini fridge. He didn't even have a TV, nor did he have a proper bed. Sonic frowned at this.
After inviting the reinventor in, Shadow sat back on his couch and stared up at Sonic, waving a hand at him to speak.
"Oh," Sonic cleared his throat. "I was gonna ask earlier, but since you aren't feeling well maybe sometime this week…if you were up for it, and you don't have to…" Sonic began to sweat, one foot tapping away at the floorboards. "You know, because you're just got back from, uh," He scratched his ear, "Where did you go, anyway?"
"That's classified G.U.N. information." Shadow snapped, eyes scanning the other hedgehogs. Shadow hadn't noticed the blue hedgehog's nervous turn in demeanor. Only finding himself drawn to the lush green of his eyes. They were whirlpools he fell into often in thoughts before drifting to sleep.
S-Supposedly.
"Oh, right. That's cool!" Sonic recovered, his smile being once again. That damned smile. "Okay, I guess what I'm asking you is, do you wanna hang out?"
Shadow blinked, "Right now?"
"NO! No-I mean," Sonic stammered, taking the other aback by the outburst. "I'm down, but I meant like sometime this week? Maybe Thursday or something?" He stared down at his hands, "We could eat, or just hang out around the city!"
"Hmph." Shadow crossed his arms, staring off past the hedgehog to the remnants of his door. Sonic shifted uncomfortably within the cottage, unaware of his onlooker's thoughts to just how adorable he was behaving.
"We don't have to!" Sonic quickly added, noticing the other's lack of response. "It was just a thought, you know…while things are calm and there's no robot trying to blow anything up and junk, hehe…"
Shadow hid behind his frustration, genuinely annoyed by the repairs he'd have to make to his front door due to his unhingedness and still unwell being. However, he fought for control of his nerves beneath the eyes of the figure before him. Sonic was in his house, and wanted to go out-hang, hang out, with him.
He was asking to hang out with him.
"Alright." Shadow shrugged.
"Really?" Sonic beamed, hands in excited fists beside his face. "Great!"
"Mmhm." Shadow eyed him, the blue hedgehog nearly bouncing in place. "...are you-"
"Right! I'll uh-" Sonic quickly zipped outside the cottage, before coming back and placing the door back in place and kneeling before the hole. "See you then!"
And in a poof, Sonic was gone. Shadow sat on his couch, staring off after the blue blur trail through the trees and fell back until he was met with the ceiling. Sonic asked him out, technically.
He then brought his communicator to his face. "Call Rouge."
After a few moments, the communicator beeped and he heard the sleepy voice of Rouge come in. "I was just about to take a shower, what's up?"
Shadow huffed, his cheeks still warm and head dizzy with the image of the hedgehog's delight from seconds before. He mumbled into the communicator. "I may need your help."
