Chapter 4

Hey Kid, You'll Never Live This Down

Disclaimer: Didn't own it last chapter, DON'T own it now, won't own it next chapter. Damn disclaimers!

I'm doing it again! ; Incase you guys haven't noticed, I'm getting my chapter titles(with the exception of 1) from random songs. That's...um..."A Little Less Sixteen Candles, a little more 'Touch Me'". Fits the chapter.

Tails jumped out of the aircraft looking the two disoriented hedgehogs over, "Hey, are you guys okay, you both look like you just saw a ghost!" Shadow forced a smile and shook his head, he was assured something like that had happened, just multiply the weirdness times ten. Tails cocked his head to the side and eyed Sonic for a response, one he wasn't going to get from him, as he was just staring at the hard ground. "Well, okay, guys..." Amy and Cream soon followed.

"Cheese will be okay!" Cream reassured everyone as if this was something they wanted to hear, no one even looked in her direction after this comment, not even Amy.

"...dammit!" Shadow broke the awkward silence finally, "Well, I guess we really ought to be working on feeling better, huh?" He looked over to Sonic who just nodded his head after a minute.

"Hey, do you think it's a good idea for Amy and Cream to be here? I mean..." Tails held up a hand and nodded his head at the green-eyed hedgehog, he looked over to Amy and Cream. Amy looked devastated as was to be expected, Cream just waved at him. Tails weakly smiled and looked back to Sonic.

"Are you going to make me tell her?" Sonic nodded his head as he unsteadily got to his feet, the weight he put on hisleft leg far much more than he would have normally, but with a gash like he had down his right one, he couldn't help it. Tails turned to them, then back to Shadow and Sonic. "I can't kick Amy out of her own house."

"You can kick Cream out of it." Shadow gave him a pointed glance, his look signaled for the fox to hurry up and comply with Sonic's request before he did it himself.

"Hey, Cream...uhm, how about you come with me? Amy can take care of Sonic and Shadow! We should go...uh, fine the chaos emeralds." Cream tilted her head at him, then agreed figuring she was getting an important job. She wasn't.

Amy smiled though, she was getting the better job, "Well...okay, I'll see you guys later!" Of course she ran over to Sonic and helped him, this made sense though even had Shadow been dying she would have probably gone and helped out Sonic. After she finished trying desperately to show Sonic some kind of affection that was doing nothing but making him feel extremely awkward, Amy finally got him into a bed and Shadow was just sitting on her couch. She had actually asked him if he wanted to lay down, but he had declined.

"Just go take care of him, I'm not really all that hurt anyway..." Shadow motioned for her to go with his hand and she just made a face at him.

"You do know, I'm supposed to take care of you." He just scoffed at this comment and didn't look over at the pink hedgehog.

"I don't need anyone to take care of me, especially the likes of you." Amy glared at him for this, that was completely unnecessary. Finally, she just left him in there to his ego, she wanted to take care of Sonic anyway.

Sonic was being about as stubborn as the dark hedgehog, he was sitting up against the bed rest with his arms crossed, she gave him a cross look of sorts. "Don't look at me like that." She just put her hands on her hips and turned her nose up at this comment.

"Go to sleep, Sonic! Don't be dumb, you're never going to be able to do anything if you don't get some rest." He turned away from her, and rolled his eyes.

"You already took care of my wounds, Amy, I'm not tired so there's no reason for me to go to sleep." Amy got an exasperated look as she jumped up on the bed and pouted at him. He just gave her an odd look and paid her no more mind than that.

She smirked, "Well...if you don't I'll just have to sit here and talk to you." She crawled over him slightly, she got her face nearly an inch from his own. If she tried to kiss him, Sonic just might have to go crawl under a rock and die. It was bad enough to have accidentally kissed Shadow, but Amy? He had to admit though, it was a good reason to go to sleep. Though, she scared him because the look on her face was almost seductive and for Amy that was very odd.

He held out his hands, and proceeded to push her back. "Fine, you want me to get some rest, I will. Just get out of my face." He shut his eyes in annoyance and jerked down in the bed, pulling the covers up over his head. Amy shook her head at him, her feelings were slightly hurt, but she couldn't let that get to her considering that was her motive, to get him to go to sleep. She just sighed and shook her head.

"Okay, fine, Sonic..." She exited the room, she didn't know why exactly, because walking into the other room was only going to lead her to have to deal with Shadow. She felt slight tears burning at her eyes and she didn't have any idea why. Maybe she did, but she didn't want to admit the fact that she was crying because of it.

"What's wrong with you?" Now, that was surprising, since when had Shadow been able to read emotions, especially hers. She looked up at him and sat down on the couch, having no where else to go, and at the moment he didn't seem to mind. She looked over at him, he was looking at her. His look wasn't concerned, but it wasn't as annoyed as it had been either.

"Why are you guys such jerks?" Shadow smirked at this comment and looked away, he figured Sonic had done something or other to piss her off.

He just laughed and didn't respond to the question, "What did Faker do to you now?" She bit her lip with her teeth, almost breaking the skin. She didn't want to discuss it with Shadow, especially after the stupid conversation her, Tails and Cream had already had earlier, she just shook her head, signaling to Shadow that he had done something.

"He's asleep."

Shadow mock scoffed, "Yeah...man, what a jerk." She laughed at him, thenjust smiled and sighed.

"I just want him to like me!" She turned to Shadow who jerked back as she was now closer to him, looking into his eyes for some kind of an answer. An answer he most certainly did not have! This was not the conversation he should have gotten himself into after his little incident with Sonic shortly before they got here.

"Yeah..." Shadow just shrugged his shoulders and looked off at an annoyingly pink wall. He didn't say anything more than that, because it wasn't like he had any all knowing wisdom to provide as an insight to Sonic's thoughts. His thoughts were in a mess about Sonic anyway, right now. Man, this girl just had great timing!

She sat back down and put her hands in between her legs just sighing, "I guess you wouldn't have an advice in that department, though, would you?" Shadow shook his head to signify that she was right. She just smiled after a minute, "Oh well...I guess if I let every little thing Sonic did get on my nerves then I'd really be a depressed person." Shadow just nodded, just smile and nod? Right?

---

Rouge glided overhead on her wings, occasionally flapping them to keep the momentum, she was thinking about her encounter with Mecha earlier. She saw the blue dot, that proved to be none other than the Tornado and blinked, "Tails!" She took off in that direction, the Tornado was not going at a very fast velocity so it was easy to catch up. She saw that Cream was in the vehicle with him, Amy wasn't. "Hey, guys!" Tails looked over at her and smiled.

"Hey! What's up!" He smiled and slowly started to land the plane, it was odd how he landed it as soon as he saw anyone, Rouge was happy for this at the moment.

"Guess who I ran into?" Cream wanted to guess, and Rouge really wished she hadn't said anything. Tails figured she meant Metal Sonic, but it would be best to let Cream guess so she could feel important.

After several really stupid guesses, Tails just smiled and guessed himself, "Metal Sonic?" Rouge nodded, relieved that he had taken the guesses out of Cream, as they were getting more and more ridiculous.

"He seems in a bigger hurry than you would think, you know?" Tails agreed, Cream was humming some ridiculous song to Cheese. Rouge rolled her eyes at that fact. "Where are Amy, Sonic and Shadow?" She assumed he knew, because he had probably run into Sonic if Amy was no longer with him.

"They're at Amy's house, Mecha really roughed Sonic up...so she decided to let them rest there...and since my house is..." He trailed off, suppressing much anger. Rouge smiled and patted him on the head.

"Well, that was very mature of her...and mature of them, they agreed to rest?" Tails nodded, obviously as surprised at Rouge. He thought for a moment whether to tell her how odd Sonic and Shadow had been acting when they got to her house, he just decided it wasn't important enough, he did need to work on things like that, right?

"Well, yeah...Sonic was hurt pretty bad..." Rouge made a face, that definitely wasn't something that normally would happen, she didn't inquire any further in spite of herself. Tails smiled and shook his head but turned back to the Tornado. "Well..."

"What are you two doing anyway?" Rouge raised an eyebrow at Tails and he just lowered his head, and gave her a look that told her she should not have asked that question.

"We're going to find the rest of the chaos emeralds!" Cream's perky response was overshadowed by Tails skeptic look. Rouge just smirked at him and nodded her head to Cream. She would have asked what he was intending to do if he was just flying around, but she guessed this was the only way to keep Cream occupied and not have her all up in Sonic and Shadow's business.

"What about Shadow?" Cream was disappointed about Rouge's "lack of interest" in the fact that they were going to find the chaos emeralds. After all, this fact made her look like she was doing something of use!

Tails cocked his head at her, "What about him?" Rouge rolled her eyes, what did Tails think she wanted to know? Whether he was all right, whether he was 'alive'! Any of these would have been nice, she swore she dealt with the most incompetent people.

"You said Sonic was hurt, was he alright?" Tails blinked and then nodded his head after a minute, he smiled.

"He's Shadow, of course he was alright!" Rouge laughed, then looked slightly perturbed when Cream spoke up again. The little rabbit just didn't quite know when to shut up.

"He hurt Cheese!" Cream's ears immediately drooped as she held up her little chao. Unfortunately, Shadow had not done enough damage because it was still smiling happily at Rouge. She just added to the little club that was not particularly fond of the rabbit or the chao. Though, at least Cream could say slightly more than her name.

"CHEESE!" Rouge forced a smile on her face, though it was under gritted teeth and looked back at Tails, wondering how in the world he was managing to deal with this. Tails just rolled his eyes after a second.

Rouge turned, having had quite enough of this conversation, "Well, I guess I'd better go though...lots of places to be." Tails nodded her off and she took off, Cream was upset she hadn't been said bye too, but she figured it was just as mistake.

Just for an experiment, he sat there to see how long before Cream got all up in the air, "...yep..." Cream looked at him oddly after a second.

"Um, Tails...what are you doing?" Tails just bobbed his head like you do when you have no idea what is going on but you don't want anyone to realize that.

"Just...sitting here." He smiled weakly and pressed the fuel again, nothing happened.

"Tails..." She grabbed his shoulders, "Tails! Make it go! Make it go!" As Cream shook him, she was managing to shake the entire aircraft. She was up in the air, that hadn't taken long at all.

---

Knuckles sat down and stared at the Master Emerald, like he was expecting it to talk or do a back flip. "This is getting old...maybe I should go see what Sonic is up to..." The emerald just sat there like it had for the past hour. He had to admit, the emerald's silence was a lot better than Cream's high-pitched squeakiness.

"Ah-ha!" Knuckles made a face and whirled around, seeing Eggman emerge with a chaos emerald. He had that annoying grin on his face that he always had when something went his way.

"That's a...chaos emerald!" Eggman smirked and mumbled something to himself, Knuckles immediately clinched his fists in anger. What exactly was the doctor up to now, he sure seemed a lot better off than he had been before.

More murmuring to himself, then the doctor began walking away. Being irrational as he was Knuckles jumped up and ran after him. No doubt easily catching up with him, Eggman whirled on sight of Knuckles. "Ah, well if it isn't Knuckles..." Knuckles just kept an eye on his movements.

"Yeah...why aren't you off trying to repair your ship?" Eggman laughed at him, then stopped and smirked after a second.

"You are all such gullible fools!" That word honestly haunted every fiber of his body, he hated hearing that word considering how many times he had been tricked by this very man.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He gritted his teeth and got into a position that signaled he was ready to knock the doctor out on a moments notice.

"I can't tell you that, that would be giving everything away."

"Huh?" Knuckles just shook his head after a moment, then leapt into the air and forced the doctor to the floor, the result of this confused him severely. The doctor's head flew OFF, springs and sparks flew everywhere after a moment. After stepping forward and taking the emerald, the blue one, the machine made a noise. The echidna stumbled backwards and fell, "What's...going on here!"

"Ev...ev...everyyyy...eveeryyy..." The malfunctioning machine let out a deep voice, as would be a CD player slowly dying or running out of batteries, the voice then got high, "Everything...everything...eeevvv..." Deep again.

"Okay! This is definitely not normal...not at all!" He whirled and decided telling people about this was probably a more intelligent thing to do that sitting there like a confused moron having no clue what the machine was going to do next. Had Metal Sonic created this? Or had Doctor Eggman?

---

He stared hard at the window, on normal occasions he would have just gone out it, but as was his current situation he just stared into a dark blue, almost black sky. You could see the stars better than usual, that wasn't something commonly seen from where he was standing. "Guess Amy was right, I did need some rest...I'm confused though, wouldn't Mecha have found the chaos emeralds by now...or maybe I'm stupid and I'm overestimating how quickly you could get them all." Sonic let himself slide down the wall into a sitting position after a second, draping his arms over his knees.

"Just...go...SEE." Shadow underestimated the power of the small pink hedgehog as she thrust him into her bedroom after a heated argument about why she couldn't go check to see if Sonic was awake. A dark room, with Sonic, after there awkward little incident this afternoon. Just...great.

"Faker, are you awake?" Sonic looked over to the door, slightly relieved it wasn't Amy, but not at all relieved that it was Shadow.

"Nope." Sarcasm again.

"Just checking." The black hedgehog returned the favor. Shadow scanned the room for the blue hedgehog and his eyes stumbled across him after a second. He was against the wall opposite of the one small window in the room. "Do you feel any better?" Sonic nodded his head.

"I feel well enough." He shrugged his shoulders, "Is Amy mad at me or something?"

"Guess we oughta leave well enough alone, then...You upset her, earlier, I guess...she said she didn't want to come back in here." Sonic smirked at him after a second, then looked past him out the window, then back at him after a quick laugh escaped him.

"So you got stuck with the job, huh? Lucky you." Shadow shrugged.

"Well, it would be different if it was some really hideous fat guy with horrible body odor, but you're just a stupid faker, so it's not like it was some harrowing experience." Sonic laughed at him after that comment, then got a freaked out expression when the image of some fat guy with horrible body odor popped into his head.

"Thanks for the mental image." He stood up, finally. He leaned against a pole on the bed, his right arm and a portion of his right ankle were still wrapped in the white bandages Amy had placed on there. White wasn't a good word for them now, though, considering blood red stains coated parts of each of them.

"Sure." After a second the atmosphere of the room hit him and he jerked his head down and stared awkwardly at the floor, a slight redness covering his cheeks. "Whatever...are you ready to go now, though...because..." He sure helped the awkwardness, if that didn't sound awkward, hell if he knew what did.

"Yeah! I'm fine, now!" Sonic stared off too, he had the same tent to his face now. His words fell together like a child's, when trying to get out of trouble. Shadow nodded his head. "Look...if you're still thinking about..."

"I'm not! Why would I be? It was just an accident!" Shadow's words did the same thing as Sonic's, the two of them weren't looking at each other anymore. Probably a good thing, considering the other's embarrassment would probably just lead to increasing their own, which would start a never ending cycle of getting redder and redder. "Why'd you even bring that up?" His words slowed down, finally. His spoken words matched his thoughts though, 'Why'd he have to bring that up!'

"Guess I'm still thinking about it...but so were you!" The second part was defensive, he clenched his teeth together, "You knew what I was going to say, before I finished." Shadow smiled slightly, it was actually more of a smirk, or somewhere in the middle.

"What else could you have been talking about?" He wanted to run, or sprint, and jump out the window. His thoughts were bugging him, now. Why was he thinking like he was? He didn't want to think like this, but he was, he was the ultimate life form, and he couldn't control his own damn thoughts!. He brought his eyes back up to Sonic, who still had no intention of looking up. He tried to kill the flush in his cheeks and stared at the hardwood floor again. His thoughts embarrassed him farther now, he didn't want to admit to himself what passed through his mind when he saw Sonic the second before, but he couldn't very well ignore it. "Heh, y'know...you're pretty damn red."

That just made it worse for Sonic and he shook his head, "...maybe it's a circulatory disease..." Shadow laughed a little bit, he was trying to calm down. The blue hedgehog knew that Shadow was doing a lot better job than he was at being calm. Though, he hadn't noticed the redness in Shadow's cheeks either, namely because he hadn't looked at him.

"A disease? Well, Sonic...maybe you just got sunburnt." Sonic half smiled, it was a nervous smile, though. A little annoyance mixed in there as well, as he brought his head forward and shook it slightly, still never looking up. "You know...you're making this awkward." He nodded his head, knowing he probably was, but it was going to be awkward for him no matter what he did. So what the hell?

"Are you telling me it didn't bother you at all, you idiot?" Shadow immediately shook his head.

"No...I didn't say that..." He stared off, then fixed his eyes back on Sonic, "...but that's not really what's bugging me." Finally two emerald green eyes made their way up to Shadow's red ones, a curious expression in them now.

"What's bugging you, then?" Shadow wished he hadn't said anything, but he couldn't take it back now. He needed to say it aloud, anyway.

"I don't know." Of course he had to be a moron, he couldn't just come out and say that he might have actually ...'liked' it to a certain extent. He tried to keep his composure, but the thought of admitting that threw him for a loop. There's no way he could say that, this was Sonic, his rival, a guy! Why would he even think to...think of Sonic that way? He didn't know why, but he was.

"Okay...that's stupid." Shadow laughed. It was. "Are you sure, it's not that you do know, and just don't want to say it?" He shook his head, maybe Sonic could read minds. Wasn't that nice?

"Hah...no."

"You're not sure?"

"Guess not." Sonic jerked his eyes back down, his heart was acting like he had just run around the world six thousand times. He felt completely idiotic, Rouge was right! He did like Shadow! Shadow was a guy, when everyone told him he needed a mate, he wasn't expecting that mate to wind up being a guy But, it certainly seemed that way. He liked Shadow. Oddly enough, Shadow acted like...or maybe that was just his imagination going psycho because he was so damn embarrassed. Shadow gritted his teeth and got close enough to him to grab the bandage on his arm, in short, he grabbed Sonic's arm. "Why are you doing this?" It wasn't a forceful grip, but it wasn't gentle either, it was firm enough to allow Shadow to pull Sonic towards him a little ways.

"Doing what!" He didn't know how to answer Sonic. He just stared blankly at him for what felt like forever.

"You know...we could probably figure out the problem right now." He didn't let go of Sonic's arm Sonic knew precisely what Shadow was talking about, and quite honestly he thought his rival was completely insane. Unfortunately, he thought himself insane, too.

Sonic blinked, "...as in...are you crazy, Shadow!" Shadow smirked and looked down at Sonic's injury for a moment. He looked back up at the emerald green eyes and nodded his head.

"I thought you would have established that by now, Faker..." Sonic halfway smiled after that, his cheeks were still red as the devil though. His heart jumped and the darker hedgehog's mouth was less than an inch from his own.

"Yeah..." Shadow could feel each one of Sonic's almost labored breaths. Heat, he could feel a lot of heat. He watched as Sonic bit his lower lip, each of the held hedgehog's breaths made his skin crawl as the heat from them touched closer to his mouth than it ever had.

'He's absolutely...adorable.'

Shadow's thoughts caught him way off guard, but he looked Sonic over for a little while longer. 'I can't be liking this...I can't be...' Sonic's thoughts were just as mind-bottling. A slight whimper escaped Sonic after a few more seconds, he swore Shadow intended to keep him this close until they both died.

Shadow smirked and laughed quietly at him. "You know, Sonic...I've never seen you act like this before." Sonic tilted his head slightly, but said nothing.

It felt like ages, almost hours before either of them even breathed, Sonic felt the flush in his cheeks doing nothing but worsening, Shadow kept his eyes on Sonic to see what he'd do, his head remained at the angle for a few more seconds then he straightened his head up and responded. "I've never acted like this before." He smiled slightly.

"Never?"

"No." Sonic kept his eyes on Shadow's now. He hadn't, he had never felt like this, acted like this, or...anything like this. His heart was literally racing, he gave Shadow a weak smile after a minute.

"That's funny...I don't think I have either." Sonic tilted his head once again, and almost laughed. The only person he'd ever made act anything like this was Amy, and he figured she acted that way around guys all the time.

"...you haven't?"

"No."

Finally, Shadow just pulled him those few centimeters closer, the green-eyed hedgehog's head was tilted so the way their lips met this time was at a slight angle. Shadow held him that way for a minute, Sonic just blinked for a second but did nothing to stop him from keeping him there. Being almost as naive as Sonic in this department, Shadow took it no further. He let go after a second and smirked, he looked over at Sonic, "Shadow...I think I like you."

Shadow smirked and nodded his head, "I think you do too, Faker..." Sonic looked at him, it didn't seem like it had been such a long time now. But, he wanted to do that again. "...and, I think I like you too."

That ending took me damn near forever. Guess what? Lots of yaoi, shounen-ai...whatever. Lots of it. You know you thought it was hot, because I thought it was hot! Okay, I'm sorry, but give me some credit...even if I kinda like reading it..it's hard to write that stuff. So don't send me any mean reviews...you haven't yet...but just inCASE you decide to be cruel little meanies! I'm trying. I've been doing that scene in my head for awhile, now...so that's why it was so long...that scene, not the chapter. The chapter was almost short! Or...was it? I'm confused! I wasn't going to post this chapter til I got more reviews, but I'm on 2 people's alert lists and 2 people's favorite story list for this story. So what the heck? ; You should leave reviews, guys...it gives me moral support! Please? ...Well, there ya go.