Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"If your dream only includes you, it's too small." ~ Ava DuVernay

Sonic hadn’t ever dreamed of space travel. It wasn’t on his radar. He’d never had the desire. Passing by millions of stars, seeing the sun dawn over the edge of the earth, might’ve been thrilling for someone who liked that sort of story. Voyages for adventure books, ones with cracked spines worn down by hitchhikers, space pirates, galaxy guardians, jedis and star trekkers.

And maybe if his friends were with him, Sonic would have thought this trip was one worth documenting, enjoying, writing home about. Or maybe if he had a place to run, it’d have been tolerable. Or perhaps if he wasn’t stuck with his messy ass ex he wouldn’t think about dropping himself out of the Starliner 3000’s dispatch hut without a helmet every time the feather brained muppet let out a misplaced warble of frustration. 

Or better yet – if Sonic was the main character. Then, at least, he could feel there was a reason for the greater good that he was the one tasked with body guarding Jet. 

But he wasn’t. So this rainbow road trip sucked. 

“Get your feet off the dash,” Jet squawked.

“Oh, sorry – Didn’t realize I couldn’t leave scuffs on the rocket ship my brother built.” His brother that he hadn’t seen in a good while because the fox had been engineering the damn thing. Once Sonic had been attached to Jet as his bodyguard for this far-fetched galactic peace mission, Tails had gone into overdrive adding additional safety features – which ran down the clock on what little free time they had before Sonic departed. 

So sue him if he was slightly bitter towards Jet for landing him in this job in the first place, he’d counter sue for lost time and entrapment.

“What if we get into an accident?” Jet harped, bring Sonic back to the reality he wasn’t escaping.

“The nearest meteor is only five clicks away. I’ll make sure they’re off before we run into one,” he slid back, the retort dripping with sarcasm. Sonic looked out a peripheral window, at the inky, dusty, glittering vacuum he wished was still fictional to him. 

Jet took a minute to evaluate his adventure partner, pretty and tough and oh-so-done with him like Jet hadn’t landed the perfect opportunity for a promotion in his lap. Raising through G.U.N’s ranks wasn’t easy.

He’d come around though. Sonic always came around. But Jet wasn’t going to let him step out of line just because he was hot and they had a history.

“Y’know this attitude is fine between us, but I’m going to need you to shape it the fuck up when we get aboard the ARK.” If Sonic had bothered to look over at the hawk, he’d have seen red orbital feathers flexing scathingly. “On your best behavior, even.”

“Just be glad I haven’t thrown myself out of the airlock,” Sonic quipped, wishing he was running loop de loops, exploring ravines, making hammocks in the canopy tops of a rainforest, discovering beach side caves full of tide pools. Wishing he hadn’t spent the last year trying to integrate into human society, bettering people’s lives. 

Wishing he was taking up space literally anywhere but space. 

“Nice. Real mature,” Jet clicked his tongue in response.

“You coulda picked anyone,” Sonic pointed out, sinking lower into the cadet’s seat. “You didn’t have to strong arm my boss.”

“The last thing I’m doing is taking a 2001 space odyssey with someone I’m not attracted to,” Jet deadpanned. It wasn’t a joke – Sonic knew Jet didn’t joke. Since Sonic had met him, he was all business, blunt and uncaring unless the outcome suited him, charming only when he saw an advantage.

He had the promotion track to back it too. Once G.U.N. ‘discovered’ Sonic – as if he didn’t exist before their awareness – they’d recruited Mobians to their ranks like marketable little superheroes. And the bird wore his badges like fresh spring plumage, let them puff out his chest, bragging over how he could bend the rules over a strategy table till they were his. 

Sonic was the opposite of that, in all honesty. 

And he was so over Jet. 

“We’re not together, Jet.”

“Oh, we’re not? Thought you changed your mind–”

“Is that why I’m here? Because you got confused over a hookup?” Sonic boiled, wondering if he hadn’t crossed the lines they hadn’t drawn if he’d still be floating through space junk right now. 

What had even made him angry enough to check their baggage to fuck Jet again?

Oh, it was Knuckles getting traded to an enemy nation like he was a trading card and not a goddamn person with a life and a family and a home – a real home. Not that Sonic was going to see him again for a long while anyways, not as long as they all remained government pawns, divided.

“Coulda fooled me,” Jet shrugged, snide pride dripping like motor exhaust. “Wasn’t the first time you’d crawled back–”

“So you derail my whole life to babysit you through a business trip on an assumption – and have the audacity to tell me where my feet should go? I should stick ‘em  right up your– ” 

He paused, took a breath, and sighed. He was cramped and tired and upset, but getting angry was just entertaining the bird who had no business being sent as earth’s last hope for peace to the Robotniks’ Colony ARK. 

The ARK that very much wanted to establish its independence, untether itself from the deteriorating planet its inhabitants had once called home. The inhabitants felt they’d given earth everything they could, and that the ground dwellers squandered every advancement they’d sent. It was only rumors, but Sonic heard they wanted the tether severed so they could explore the fringes of space, search for advancements well beyond what earth’s limited agenda allowed them. 

“Babysitting? Sonic, how could you think that? You were clearly the most qualified for this mission,” Jet gaslit. “A hero with a winning streak and just enough infractions to be dangerous in the field.”

Those that are capable, must. The United Federation of Earth’s tagline bounced around his head, familiar, controlling, maddening. The hawk had bought into it, been promoted quickly, earned decorum as a model Mobian. 

Sonic loved humanity, but he’d never thought of himself as a hero. But that was how G.U.N. had positioned him, all of them. Marketed their visages and their themes, deployed toys and games through Targets and Goodwills to restore some sort of whimsical hope to kids that just wanted to believe in something while it was all falling apart.

Dreams were all anyone had left, when he looked people in the eye. And that was hard, much harder than sprinting through what was left of nature on his own, taking in the fresh air for what it was. 

“That all?” Sonic baited, bored. 

Jet couldn’t resist stepping into the open space, sliding in a greasy, comedogenic subtext subdermally shallow. “And you’re hot in bed – felt like I’d want someone who knew how to need me,” he cocked with a grin, head feathers ruffling tall. He loved being sleazy, knowing he could get away with it.

And it was the brink of the world, the heavier storms, the deforestation, the disillusionment that led Sonic to smudge lines – erase and redraw them with Jet. Moments when change felt like it was too much, the world too big, the future too uncertain. But, the hedgehog noted for the fourth time, that sleeping with his ex would only complicate his life by the way of playing support on what could be the last adventure with earth in existence. 

“I’m not sleeping with you.” Peach arms folded, closing the conversation.

“Look, I don’t know how long this deal will take to crack,” Jet explained, switching to a tone that held real gravity, leveled out his altitude. “The tensions are tensioning, or whatever. Don’t rule it out just yet – you  know how you get.” The bird acted like he was being practical.

“Oh god – Jet, really ?” Sonic griped, “Do you even have a plan for this or was this some sick plot to– to–”

“Relax, Sonic. I’m an excellent negotiator, the head of G.U.N wouldn’t have sent me otherwise – and I have U.F.E backing. We’ve got leverage .” Jet’s chest fluffed, puffing out like he really had all the answers.

“They want to aim a death laser at the Earth ! What leverage could possibly be– ”

“They’ve got weapons of mass despair, we have weapons of mass despair,” Jet warbled lightly. “Weapons level the field, they’re there to neutralize.”

“We’re doomed.”

Jet clapped a hand on Sonic’s shoulder like that alone would keep the world from ending. “Hey – trust. And feet off the dash.” 

XXX 

Trust was in limited supply as soon as the travelers boarded the ARK. Stares were constant, lacking curiosity, clinical in the way that sent the hero’s instincts screaming. They weren’t being seen so much as measured, catalogued. The kind of look that pinned things to cork boards and labeled them: Other.

It made Sonic’s quills stand on end.

Negotiating a peace deal had somehow fallen to two hotheaded Mobians, and Sonic still didn’t know how. Jet had brushed it off, saying, brawn doesn’t need to know the brain’s plan.

As if that explained anything.

They’d suited up aboard their own ship, dressed in the kind of formality meant to demand respect from people who didn’t want to give it. Jet wore a silver number with absurd red shoulder pads that flared like wings, cutting a line between intimidation and spectacle. But it was clunky and confusing, so much so Jet had needed his help to button up the damn thing. Sonic’s armor was sleeker – agency-provided, built from unstable molecules to withstand whatever speed he threw at it.

Was there even a sound barrier in space?

He’d known the station was human populated. He was ready to feel short. What he wasn’t ready for was how alien they’d make him feel. He hadn’t considered just how little exposure these people had to Mobians.

He felt more like they were walking into a cleanroom, like they were being assessed for contamination, a plague. He smoothed down his body language, carefully tamping down any “animalistic” tells he wasn’t fully aware of. No twitching ears. No crinkling of the muzzle. No un thoughtful flicks of the tail. 

His kind hadn’t been here before. He knew it instantly. From the way they looked at his legs, like he should be on all fours. Like he’d escaped some enclosure. Like he was a mistake in the gene pool. 

Or maybe it was all in his head, and this was just how city-states on the brink of mutual annihilation greeted guests from the not-yet-warring planet. 

Again, Sonic hadn’t been briefed. He wouldn’t know any better. 

Field green passed over Jet, wondering if the bird felt it too – if feathers were itching like his quills. Watching for any signs the other was experiencing the harsh reality – two Mobians sent to advocate for the preservation of peace against people who might not even see them as people. 

That was the fate of the world the leaders had left them to.

The possibility of self-sabotage passed through Sonic’s mind for maybe the hundredth time since he’d learned it was his problem to guard Jet’s body through this ordeal, when the doors to the grand entry burst open, and a woman swept in like she'd missed the memo on the tension.

Blonde, tall – close to six feet – wearing a sharp command uniform offset by bright blue shoes that matched only her headband, pulling back golden curtain bangs that framed sharp, sparkling eyes. On Earth, she could’ve been a model. Here, she looked like a glitch in the program – unexpected, radiant, human.

She barely made a show of adjusting her coat before she strode up and grabbed Jet’s arm in a two-handed shake.

“Lieutenant Jet,” she beamed, “it is so wonderful to see you again.” It was a warmer welcome than either of them was expecting, given the current precedent and circumstance. 

“You haven’t aged a year,” Jet said with his usual slick charm, not missing the beat. “Thank you for welcoming us, Commander Robotnik.” 

“Maria is fine,” she hushed, amicable. “Robotnik is what my nephew prefers – and he’d come to greet you, but he swears he’s on the brink of yet another great breakthrough. Always innovating, here on the ARK.”

“Maria, then,” Jet nodded. Behind them, Sonic caught a few uniforms stiffen at the break in decorum. 

“I know we have much to discuss, many items to agree on – but we never have visitors,” she continued, her voice lilting with excitement. “Everyone’s been preparing. Come, come – I have so much to show you.” Diplomacy seemed less important to this woman than hospitality. It was odd – the circumstances of their arrival were far from happy, far from friendly. And even odder, was how easily Jet accepted the invitation, laughed along in chatter like this was some old friendship. 

If all Sonic had was this conversation to watch, he’d never guess that the relationship between the city-state and their home planet had devolved so desperately – the representative’s body language was so open, so disarming. 

Sonic didn’t trust it, any of it. 

What he trusted even less was how easily Jet fell into her rhythm, bantering like this was a reunion, rather than a political standoff. Like they were old colleagues.

“And who is your friend, Jet?”

“I’m his bodyguard,” Sonic anchored, a little too stiff in his space suit. 

“Sonic, Maria Robotnik – lead engineer and commander in chief of the Space Colony ARK. Maria, Sonic the Hedgehog – runs faster than light can travel.”

“Oh the trip must have felt so slow for you,” she empathized, shocking Sonic with how quickly she’d understand that from that one detail. Not sarcastic, not suspicious – considerate, actually. “We haven’t considered ourselves a Colony for some time,” she added with a smile. “It’s such a mouthful.”

Maria guided them through the ARK, showing them to their rooms to start. Separate and with locks to Sonic’s absolute personal and professional relief. Each had a window – tall and wide, circular, with enough of a ledge to lounge on – allowing in starlight. It didn’t feel old, the way Sonic would have expected, since this ship was built nearly seventy years ago.

They were granted twenty minutes to refresh before the tour began.

Maria didn’t walk them through the ARK so much as unfold it, more focused on sharing her blueprints, revealing the advancements they’d made in, well, in everything. Flocks of lab-grown sheep grazed in a simulated meadow, projected sky arching above with artificial wind rustling through Sonic’s fur. He could’ve sworn he was back on Earth.

Their agriculture systems were immaculate: hydroponics and aeroponics supporting grains, herbs, roots, berries, even lentils. And mushrooms. So many mushrooms.

Sonic wrinkled his muzzle. He hated mushrooms. Maria laughed warmly, her nose pinching up childishly despite her age.

“They’re a complete protein. Efficient and sustainable,” she explained, tugging him along before he could argue.

“She talks more than you,” Jet murmured in an aside. And it was true, she spoke with such fervor, information was flying at the two Mobians about as fast as Sonic could run. 

More than once in the long tour of the science channel, Sonic felt his mind drift. Not because Maria was boring, and not because he wasn’t able to comprehend what she was sharing, but because he had a sense that they were being watched. 

And he didn’t feel he was being watched like before, observed through sterile eyes at the docking bay. This feeling was warmer, deliberate, intent on keeping distance while staying close.

Sonic wasn’t sure if Jet felt the way the air swished in his feathers the way he felt it through his quills, or if feathers even worked that way. But anytime Sonic let his eyes drift, scan the edges of their surroundings, look back at a hallway they’d just come from, he found nothing. 

But the feeling lingered, even as they waited in line for food in the cafeteria.

And maybe it was just itchy anxiety, that the situation felt so casual when the stakes were so high. Maybe it was the artificial lighting, or the fact he was on a space odyssey with his cheating ex. Maybe it was the fact that he wasn’t sure when he’d get to run through the sand, see his friends, enjoy a chili dog that had Sonic blurting out, “Don’t you both have, like, the fate of humanity to debate or something!”

His voice echoed, quieting the cafeteria, and the feeling of being watched intensified. That weird presence felt bigger, drawing pricks up his spine.

Maria received the frustrated unprofessionalism with grace, a smile that said she’d seen far worse shit than a grumpy earthling in her time. 

Jet elbowed him under the table. “I’ve appreciated that Maria has kindly taken the time to show us hospitality and demonstrate the strengths of the ARK’s advancements.” Jet spoke through as if Sonic hadn’t had a moment, ignored the obvious breach in diplomacy.

Maria paused mid-chew, setting her fork down with a soft clink . “Sonic,” she began gently, “I know you're here on duty... and you’re right, Jet and I do have much to discuss… But I hope you won’t find your stay too boring while we attempt to define mutually agreeable terms.”

“Boring?” Sonic repeated, dry. Of course standing beside Jet while he waxed on and on about things he didn’t even understand would be boring. That was the job. He was the escort. Jet’s accessory. A side character with no action, no influence, someone who watched the plot unfold while others figured it out.

“You weren’t given security clearance, Sonic,” Jet cut in flatly, down to the chase. “You won’t be allowed in the room — your low ranking is why.”

Typical. 

“I was wondering if I could introduce you to someone,” Maria said gently, stepping between them like warm light through a cracked door. Turning toward Sonic, her voice felt private. “Since you’re here.”

Sonic’s ears twitched, something shifted again. 

“You must forgive me for requesting that Earth send Mobians for these talks,” she admitted. “It was a selfish request, really.” 

And then Maria sighed, fondness woven into her breath. 

“It’s alright, Shadow,” she called. “You can come out now.”

Shadow? Sonic hadn’t heard the name in any of the mission briefings. No mention in the security rundown. 

Black and crimson, with quills that swept back like weaponry. Deep, red irises locked onto Sonic’s, recalibrating dangerously. Sonic felt like he was being scanned, assessed… and he might’ve liked that feeling now, seeing who was behind it. 

No whisper of another Mobian onboard, much less one this… this cool. But there Shadow was stepping through a seamless panel in the wall like he’d been built into it.

An anomaly. 

Shadow clocked every twitch of the reaction, the quickened pulse and flash of challenge through green. 

Shadow was almost entertained when blue quills flared, flicking out at the ends, startled, suspicious. A plated arm shot out like a seatbelt over his green feathered charge’s chest, dutifully.

The thing was, Shadow had never seen another hedgehog before, certainly not one that felt designed, not one that made Shadow wonder if he’d ever actually looked at someone before. So he’d paid close attention when he’d wandered the ship. He was blue with long sloping quills that fell like water over a cliff. His coat was shiny, iridescent under certain lights, took on indigo under the growth lamps of the ARK’s farm. He was observant too, ears flicking and twisting every time Shadow warped to a new spot to view, out of sight. 

He’d been having fun for once, playing a little game in his head, wondering if the other would be clever enough to spot him when Maria called out, summoned him to the conversation. 

“Sonic, I’d like you to meet Shadow. He’s my closest friend. Shadow, Jet and I should probably begin outlining our concerns. Could you please help Sonic feel at home?”

Field green furrowed at him, that peach muzzle crinkling cutely. 

“I’ll try.”

Chapter Text

On one hand, Sonic was grateful to see another Mobian in what felt like a hostile environment. On the other hand, said Mobian was acting on behalf of said hostile environment, guiding him through it like he represented it.

And he was a little too hot. 

So Sonic’s guard stayed high, spines locked into a tension that hadn’t loosened since his boots hit the ARK’s floors.

Shadow wasn’t armored like Sonic. He wasn’t stiff like Jet. Wasn’t performing like Maria. He was present , still, quiet, in a way that made Sonic feel louder for even existing. 

And Sonic couldn’t stop taking him in.

He found his eyes drifting to spots he’d normally look for on Jet. Eyes that split through him, liner that felt like precision, and chest scruff that provided importance. His racing stripes were ridiculous, running down his arms and legs like high fashion warning tape. 

Sonic trailed behind him through labs, quiet studies, dark-glass conference rooms, barely touched recreation areas, chemical laden laundry rooms. Shadow said little. Didn’t search for small talk. Gave him space. Seemed more focused on keeping the route clear than cluttering it with conversation. The ARK was so large, he didn’t want to distract the blue hedgehog’s ability to comprehend his surroundings. Sonic couldn’t decide if that was thoughtful or calculating.

By the time they were nearing the guest quarters again, Sonic’s frustration boiled over again. “So how does this work? You chaperone me so I can chaperone Jet?”

“You can relax, Sonic,” he stated, exhaling faintly like the earthling’s suspicion was expected. “Jet’s safe aboard the ARK.”

“You were watching us the whole time – spying .” Sonic sent the accusation with narrowed eyes.

“I was only doing the same as you,” Shadow replied smoothly. “Protecting what I care about.”

Sonic flushed. His quills twitched. “I don’t care about Jet.”

“No? You seemed pretty quick back there,” he baited. By Shadow’s observation, Sonic and Jet seemed close but in an odd kind of way. Shadow couldn’t quite pin it, he just knew he’d never seen body language like that, halfway between protective and not wanting to touch. 

“Because I’m quick, ” Sonic shot back, lifting his chin, peach arms folding over his chest in defense. “‘Fastest thing alive,’ according to my marketing team.”

“I’d keep up,” Shadow challenged, taking the baited brag. Sonic perked up – he missed running and it’d only been a week since he left earth. He missed wind, missed feeling winded.

“You run?” Sonic tried not to sound too interested.

“Every night,” Shadow confirmed.

“Where?” Sonic's mind traveled through the corridors of this prison of a space station, wondering where one could truly run in this floating cage.

“I’ll show you,” Shadow promised, pausing at Sonic’s door. “If you tell me why you’d protect someone you don’t like.” An offer, but also a dare. An invitation dressed like a demand.

“I don’t care about Jet,” Sonic admitted. “But I care about my home. He’s who Earth picked to patch things up, and I’m who he picked to keep him alive while he does it.”

Shadow studied him like he was surface imaging a new planet. “Are the peace talks why you seem so…” Shadow trailed, searching for a word that wouldn’t bother his guest more. “ ...Unpeaceful?”

Sonic lifted a brow. “What’s with the twenty questions?”

“I didn’t know there were more of me,” Shadow hushed, stepping just a fraction closer, finding warmth in the tightened space between them. “Forgive me if I’m... curious about you.” The spaceling’s voice dropped, soft as starlight.

And Sonic noticed, from this close, the way that outer flick of his quills, that subtle curve they had, made him look like a dark star. But the way he was holding his gaze, drawing Sonic’s eyes back to his, made Sonic feel like he was the one on display in an observatory.

Shadow’s eyes rounded like the full moon, hanging low in the sky, close enough to think he could reach. The harsh lines, the critical irises from before were smoothed out by something thoughtful, earnest, quietly bright. Shadow was curious in a way Sonic didn’t know how to handle without leaping into something or bolting away.

Shadow didn’t advance further. He didn’t have to. Sonic felt his back ease into the door behind him like his body had already made the decision his brain hadn’t caught up with.

It was... incendiary.

He licked his lips, forcing his eyes to stay somewhere safe. He didn’t want to think about any of these thoughts passing his mind within an hour of seeing a Mobian that wasn’t–

Shadow reached forward, tucking something hard and cold into Sonic’s palm. “A communicator, I’ll send you coordinates.”

Sonic looked down, then up, puzzled. The signs had pointed in one direction, any Mobian would have expected more… but Shadow lived with people. Shadow didn’t have Mobian habits. Shadow was… odd.

Or maybe Sonic was just in the wrong orbit. “You gonna track me with this?” He needled instead.

“Wouldn’t need to. You’re impossible to miss,” the spaceling delivered softly, as fact. Shadow was still close, close enough to share air. Sonic felt heat in his ears. It wasn’t a compliment, but it felt like one.

The words tumbled around his head longer than he felt they needed to. He turned the device over in his hand, thumb resting on the sleek ridge of its casing. It looked like every other piece of tech he didn’t trust. But it was warm now, from Shadow’s hand. That shouldn’t have mattered.

It did.

Shadow turned without a word, boots ghosting over the grated floors. Sonic stood in the doorway, alone again. He looked down at the communicator in his hand, gripped it tighter, wishing it was the kind that could phone home. If he could get Tails on the line, hell even Knuckles, maybe he’d get some sense talked into him.

Cause he shouldn’t feel his heart thumping like this – not for the enemy.

XXX

Sonic had barely peeled off the ridiculous space gear he’d been outfitted in when the coordinates came through. A quiet ping, no message, just numbers. Straight to the point.

He tossed the armored exosuit over the back of a chair, plates making it lay clunkily, stiff with G.U.N. branding. Some designer must have wanted to show off – or maybe a higher up was afraid of letting Sonic dress the way he preferred. Either way, it didn’t matter. No one had snapped a photo, likely because this mission would remain covert unless successful.

And Sonic wasn’t confident anyone thought they’d be successful – not that he’d play a role in it even if they were. Honestly Sonic had been surprised he’d been allowed to go. He’d had a less than perfect track record for following orders back home.

But maybe the fact he was here was evidence enough of Jet’s ability to convince.

The text had said twenty-one-hundred, but time up here was a funny thing. Outside never changed, as starlit as every other night. The hallways dimmed on a schedule, piped lighting doing its best to mimic the sherbert of a sunset, the fading lavender of day’s retreat. But even its best was little better than dorm room string lights.

Sonic supposed he could sit in the farm, watching simulated grass drink artificial daylight, hoping an engineer cared enough to project a proper sunset. It wouldn’t be the same, certainly wouldn’t be warm, but maybe it would be enough.

Enough would have to do for now, until Jet weaseled a deal.

The hedgehog let his communicator guide him down metal halls and winding stairwells to the colony’s lowest deck. It was an observation chamber.

Sonic peered through the thick glass walls, trying to catch a glimpse of the canon aimed at his home. But he couldn’t see it, not from here.

Instead Earth hovered far below, soft and round in the dark. Its clouds curled sleepily, blanketing over pockets of blues and greens that looked healthy from this far away, like they weren’t carrying the weight of war.

And beyond it, the Sun. As close and as far as ever, but failing to give Sonic what he’d grown to expect from it. Warmth, the illusion of time, happiness. But it kept burning, like it was all it knew how to do.

Sonic shifted his weight, hands in his pockets, suddenly unsure what he was doing waiting here. He shouldn’t be doing anything. Jet was the diplomat, not him. Orbiting up here, far from familiar ground, he felt like a body passing through. He was a fragment of a fragment of a fragment, space junk on a cosmic scale.

He didn’t want to be somewhere he didn’t have any purpose.

He stared at the Sun again, watching it burn away, give everything it had to the universe as it did nothing but stay in place. Maybe that was what heroes were supposed to do – burn until there was nothing left to give.

“It’s my favorite place on the ship,” came a voice from behind. Sonic turned just in time to see Shadow’s boots touchdown, green air distortions vanishing behind him like breath on glass. He made a mental note to ask about that trick – later. When trust was easier to come by, when the ebony hedgehog would be more likely to share a secret.

“See many shooting stars?” Sonic asked, watching little speckles of light wobble in the dark. “You must see them fall all the time.”

“Stars don’t fall.”

Sonic glanced over. “You sure? Feels like one might.”

“They don’t,” Shadow repeated, a little firmer this time. “Stars form in clouds of gas, fuse hydrogen into helium, all that. They burn for billions of years.”

Sonic tilted his head, thinking everyone up here probably talked like they were on National Geographic. “Yeah, but then what? They last forever?”

“They collapse. Or fade… eventually,” Shadow looked away. “But even after they’re gone, their light shines.”

He paused, eyes flicking to tiny streaks burning bright as they slammed through Earth’s atmosphere. Sonic caught them too, watched them shimmer like scratches on film. 

No one watched for shooting stars anymore, back home. Just missiles and ballistics passing through to less fortunate places. 

So maybe the earthling just wanted to hear something nice, for once. 

“Meteors fall,” Shadow added. “Small rocks left over when asteroids or comets crash, space debris pulled into Earth’s. They flare bright for a moment as they burn up. Beautiful, but brief.”

It sounded sad, complacent to Sonic’s trained ear. Shadow walked forward, approached the railing, near Sonic but not close. “This is a good place to watch them, since the view is unobstructed,” he offered, eyes content to stare into the velvet of constant night, search for minor differences in the image. “No distractions.”

“It just makes me wish I was down there,” Sonic shared, green drifting over Earth’s curves, ignoring the sparkling backdrop he’d been forced to take part in.

“Maria used to say the same,” Shadow replied softly, closing the distance to share the view with Sonic. “Sometimes I wonder if she ever misses it.”

“She’s from – wait, we haven’t sent anyone to the ARK in…decades…” He hesitated, squinting like he could make out answers in the constellations he didn’t know the names to. Sonic knew he wasn’t one for current events, but he’s sure he would have heard such large news as a visit to or from the colony.

“We haven’t,” Shadow answered, opening a pause between them. Soft, and wide, watching the spaceling waver slightly, refuse to meet the look Sonic was shooting him. Instead, he sighed and decided to give a half answer. “When she came to live here, she was very sick. She collapsed easily. Here, she could receive the treatments she needed, groundbreaking medicine.”

“So why no visitors before us?”

“New… looks nice,” red eyes slid to Sonic, “but new can be dangerous.”

“Am I dangerous?” Sonic asked, trying to ignore how Shadow’s focus felt nice, central. Jet only made eye contact when he wanted something, when he thought he was getting something.

“Only because you make me curious.” Shadow leveled Sonic with a look that might as well have been a line redacted in an S-rank file. And Sonic wasn’t sure if the other knew how loaded that sounded.

“You keep saying that.”

“I do,” Shadow agreed – and this time, he reached out, ungloved fingers brushing Sonic’s wrist as he turned away from the window. A light touch, more a tether than a grab. There was something in his hand, some magic to the words, that made the blue hero agreeable.

“Where are we–”

“I said I’d show you – fair’s fair.”

Shadow took him through high-security doors with no hesitation. Past retina scanners and sealed airlocks, his presence enough to grant passage. And Sonic wondered if he’d do the same, allow a stranger such quick access, if their roles were reversed. Eventually, they stepped into a wide, circular chamber made of chrome and glass, filled with humming light.

“You said you’re fast,” Shadow recalled. “I want to see you beat my time.”

“Oh, I’ll destroy it,” Sonic laughed, before taking in just what he was looking at.

In the center of it all stood a crystalline tower, pulsing with golden light. Control panels ringed the room, sleek and humming. A slim viewport near the ceiling showed open space, black and starless.

“Wait. Where are we?”

“The energy core,” Shadow replied, like it wasn’t a big deal. Sonic broke the hold on his hand like he’d been burned.

“You brought me to the weapon?”

“It’s not– It’s where I run,” Shadow clarified quickly. “The energy I generate, the core absorbs it – keeps people safe and powers the ARK.” It was spoken plainly, void of shame – simple and honest. And Sonic stared. “It's… it’s my only job,” he finished, trailing.

And Sonic realized… Shadow wasn’t just part of the station. He was the station. An infinite power source, a convenient, living battery.

“They… use you to farm energy?”

“It’s how I can stay useful. We all do our part,” Shadow replied mechanically, an echo of the familiar one Sonic had adhered to himself: Those that are capable, must.

Regardless of whether Shadow believed in his propaganda or protocols, his importance was the kind of detail that should’ve been kept under wrap, that much Sonic saw.

“Shadow, I can't be here,” Sonic rushed out, blood boiling with understanding. “I shouldn’t even know this.”

“Why?”

“I don’t have clearance!”

“But I gave you clearance.”

“That’s not how this works,” Sonic hissed. “Do you know what kind of trouble I’ll be in?”

“From who? The parrot?”

“He’s a hawk. ”

“He’s weaker than you.”

“He’s the only person I know here.” Sonic threw the forthright eye contact away, frustrated and exposed. “You don’t get it.”

“I’m trying to,” Shadow defended quietly. “You looked… antsy. Like I get, sometimes. I thought maybe… you needed space to stretch your legs… and…”

“And, what?” Sonic tapped his foot in response.

“I wondered what running with a friend would feel like.” A small line, iterated with such unconcealed sincerity, that opened the airlock on Sonic’s logic, his anger, his everything.

He breathed out through his nose. Damn it .

Sonic was seeing that maybe things were more straightforward to Shadow than they were in reality. Shadow just wanted to connect. And truly, maybe Sonic did too – if he forgot that they were standing on opposite sides of a political fault line too severe to consider crossing.

Even so, regardless of how much Sonic itched for movement, he couldn’t justify fueling a reactor that might one day destroy his home.

“Tonight… tonight can I just watch?”

Shadow nodded like simple company was enough.

The track wrapped the walls, one only someone who could reach the speeds of a race car could stick to. It was made of panels that lit neon, rainbow, flashed bright under Shadow’s feet. And that was beautiful.

Shadow’s running form was nothing like his own. Where Sonic darted and pivoted, all momentum and momentum-breaking, Shadow glided smooth, composed. His head remained low, focused – an ice skater.

Gold energy flew off his heels, licked at the backs of his arms as he increased speed, going faster, faster, faster until he was dancing across rainbows, cutting through color, a dark blur skating inside a prism.

Arcs of static rolled behind him, cackling energy, threadbare lightning spinning into the power core in the center of the room.

And Sonic didn’t lose sight of him, not even once.

He dropped to the floor, sprawled flat on his back beneath the swirl of lights, arms folded behind his head. Let the colors blaze over him. Gauged Shadow’s speed, his stamina – both making Sonic wish they were back at Green Hill so he could challenge this guy to a real race. if they were anywhere else –  back on solid dirt, under a real sun –  he’d have torn off without a word. Away from all their pretense.

Eventually, Shadow slowed, dropped gracefully from the wall – landing knee bent, hand down, head lifted in the hero pose. Sonic huffed a soft laugh, sitting up, tucking his feet up, butterfly.

Shadow crossed the room to a drawer tucked under one of the control panels. From it, he pulled two chilled water bottles. He tossed one to Sonic, who caught it without standing.

“Not bad,” Sonic affirmed, unscrewing the cap, watching Shadow down half his bottle, ignoring the long line of the guy’s jugular. “But I’d still smoke you on an open field.”

“You talk big for someone who’s burning up just watching.”

“It’s tempting,” Sonic volleyed, rolling the bottle between his palms. “But I think I’d be breaking a few intergalactic laws along the way. Getting my trainers warm powering a weapon I’m here on business for… seems a little stupid.”

Shadow leaned back against the panel, half-drunk water crinkling in both hands. “You think too much.”

“You don’t even know me.” Sonic stood, dusting imaginary dirt from his legs.

“You’ve been holding your breath since you landed.” Shadow’s tone didn’t shift, but his gaze did – steady, a little too steady. Calm. “Energy like yours doesn’t do well bottled up. You pace a lot.”

“You are such a spy,” Sonic ribbed, “You got that from watching me pace around for five minutes?”

“Fifteen,” Shadow corrected.

“You counted?” He didn’t know why he was surprised. Shadow didn’t answer, didn’t need to. He’d already–

“Like I said,” Shadow recalled, walking towards Sonic. “You make me curious.”

Sonic had to look away, take a long pull from his water like it might cool the heat licking the back of his neck. Off-limits, he reminded himself. Absolutely off-limits.

“I don’t know if you’re trying to wear me down or warm me up,” he muttered. Shadow tilted his head.

“Both require motion.”

A genuine laugh escaped his chest before he could reel it in. “You’re not funny,” Sonic denied, wiping a tear from his eye, too late and too light to be sincere.

“I’m not joking.” And that was the problem. Shadow was just… like this. Focused. Quiet. Strangely kind. It wasn’t fair.

Not when Sonic couldn’t have it. He was a bodyguard. On a world saving mission. Involving himself in Shadow would mean entangling himself in something he wasn’t even sure he could untangle.

Spectacularly, blindingly off-limits.

Sonic does, however, allow himself to think that red eyeliner looks so much better on the ebony hedgehog than it does on Jet.  And about how Shadow’s lips were wet from water, mind lingering on how he was looking at Sonic like they could go for a run.

A long one, judging from his stamina.

Sonic needed an intervention. 

Gaia, Jet was so stupidly right about him – Sonic couldn’t keep his eyes from wandering, his heart from jumping, his thoughts to his damn self. He knew it wouldn’t land, but the part of him that wanted to flirt ran ahead, jumped into Shadow’s lane to match step.

“Hmm I’m still feeling lukewarm on powering the weapon, but maybe if we both put our heads together, there’s another way I could get out some energy.”

“Okay,” Shadow agreed, the implication ghosting straight through him. 

And damn if that density didn’t make him more charming. Sonic decided maybe it was okay to start slow. He needed a friend anyways.

“Hey – have you ever seen a sunrise?”

Chapter Text

Jet didn’t tell him squawk-shit about the state of negotiations, but Sonic could guess.  The stares they got said enough – like someone had sent a feathered insult to the bargaining table and called it diplomacy. Jet’s education, his charisma, meant nothing.

Maria had been correct. Requesting Mobian ambassadors was selfish. And maybe reckless.

So when Jet made passes, acted like the bigger Mobian, held intimate details about Sonic over his head – he let it slide. Most of the time. Maybe Sonic would shoot off a snide remark here or there, slam a door in the hawk’s smug face, remind him that he was the one who’d cheated in the first place, call him out for playing the victim in it all. A martyr complex without wings – always sacrificing, never receiving. 

But sometimes, Jet would show up at his room, tired and dead in the eye, and Sonic knew he didn’t know what the answer was, and it was killing him.

Peace was ambiguous, in the way it shouldn’t be.

So he’d let him in. He’d hold that arrogant, cheating, miscalculated mess of a hawk, mutter affirmations into feathers that still smelled like synthetic soap, and try to carry a little of the weight himself. He’d take on as much of the burden as he could, if only because it was something to do. 

Because what else could he do, when the fate of the world might hinge on the last person he’d ever trust with it?

He still hated Jet for isolating him from everyone he knew, complicating the air with Sonic’s involvement. But when the moment was just a moment, he knew they were both scared, wishing whatever cross they were bearing wouldn’t fall on anyone they knew when they eventually collapsed under its weight. 

When Jet was off walking diplomatic tightropes, Sonic had time – too much time – and too many corridors to pace. For how many people lived here, the ARK was too quiet. And in that quiet space, Shadow would show up to share it.

Shadow didn’t fill the silence the way Jet did. He didn’t armor up with words or posture. He was still, present, keen. And unlike the humans aboard the colony, Shadow rarely seemed like he had something better to do when he wasn’t running to keep the ship afloat. 

A constant in a place that spun.

Sonic hadn’t meant to get attached. He told himself that a dozen times while sprawled out on synthetic grass, watching artificial clouds drift across a projected sky in predictable patterns, hands behind his head. He reminded himself again every time Shadow stood too close, leaned over his shoulder to correct a chess move or brushed his fingers across Sonic’s palm while passing him a water bottle. It was all innocent. Probably. And yet, pretending his pulse didn’t jump was getting harder. So was pretending he wasn’t waiting for the next excuse to be in the same room, looking for quiet spaces more than escape routes.

Shadow never said he wanted anything other than Sonic’s company – his time, his stories, his perspective. He just kept showing up, asking for more stories about Sonic’s adventures on earth, making Sonic feel like he was important too . Probably because Shadow liked having a friend.

And Sonic knew it was just friendship, but Shadow had a way of dropping lines that made it so hard to not get his heart in a flutter. Jet had never been nice to him, and that absence of experience was making him particularly susceptible to crimson eyes lined in red, matted in black, the soft brush of fur over fur that felt familiar and new. Forced him to calm his tail, flex it just so it would stay still – all because he was thirsty for some goddamn attention. 

And when Sonic discovered the chest fluff, maybe thirsty for more. Sonic might’ve made Shadow curious, but Shadow was making Sonic yearn.

He rolled in the grass, gritting his teeth, folding his arms over his head like he could block out the thoughts. Shadow was a part – a seemingly loyal part – of the enemy side. Or maybe not the enemy – but what else do you call a city-state with a massive weapon that held peace talks that left even someone as emotionally bankrupt as Jet glassy-eyed and slack-limbed, starving for a hug? 

Maybe Sonic was confused. Maybe he was pent up. He hadn’t liked someone. He wasn’t even sure he’d liked Jet. Really, Jet could have just been familiar, willing. Cause what he was feeling about Shadow… he’d never considered feeling for Jet.

Two months.

They’d been here for two months, enough time to memorize the rotation of digital clouds. Enough time to break down and participate in Shadow’s nightly runs, light the energy core, streaks of teal to match his gold. Enough time to realize he’d started saving his better observations for Shadow’s patient eyes, for that small, amused breath Shadow let out when Sonic made him laugh.

Maybe it was all just emotional survival. For him, for Jet, for Shadow. Or maybe, just maybe, allowing his heart to feel unbridled with rules was a taste of the freedom he’d been missing since the integration. A personal rebellion with implications he wouldn’t think too hard on. He didn’t have clearance, after all. 

Maybe peace was too much to hope for. But companionship, if only fleeting, was something they could still claim for themselves.

XXX

“You don’t have to pretend with me, y’know,” Jet began one night, voice soft like he thought it made him gentle. “You can admit it’s been hard.” 

The hawk had collapsed on the edge of Sonic’s bed like it was his own, lounging like he expected more than Sonic really felt like he could give.

Sonic was getting tired of being the strong one, but the idea that Jet assumed he had any business being Sonic’s emotional support when he’d been the one who dragged him in was vicious. Of course he wanted Sonic to break down. 

They both knew how Sonic was when he broke down. 

Sonic didn’t turn from the window. He was watching Earth. That blue-and-green marble, imagining he was three hundred thousand miles away from Jet the Hawk. Cities sparked faintly along the edges, like someone had tried to trace constellations on a globe. 

He pressed one gloved hand to the glass, unsure if it made him feel closer or further away. “I’m not pretending. I’m compartmentalizing.”

Jet gulled, like that word didn’t belong in Sonic’s mouth. “Since when do you talk like a therapist?”

“Since I started being yours.” 

That earned a pause – not long. Just enough. Sonic could hear the shift of fabric, the slow scrape of boots hitting the floor as Jet stood.

“Y’know this place is big enough for us to pretend we don’t know each other,” Sonic quipped flatly, pivoting the conversation.

Jet didn’t answer right away, choosing to let the silence stretch until he crossed the room, slow, the scrape of his soles a little too intentional. Sonic felt the change in the air beside him before Jet’s voice landed – low and slick.

“Yeah, but then I wouldn’t get to do this,” Jet murmured, brushing a hand across the small of Sonic’s back – casual like muscle memory. 

Sonic stiffened. “That why you’re here?” He knew Jet would make a pass eventually, he’d been obvious about that. But he didn’t know how gross it would feel under this light, when his heart was chasing after someone else. 

“You say it like it’s a bad thing.”

“Isn’t it?” Sonic finally turned to face him with defiance. And then he saw how much worse Jet looked up close. Eyes bagged, feathers unpreened, the cock of his stance slipping – like his edges were frayed and he didn’t know how to mend them on his own.

He looked rough. Like the cracks were real this time. But that wasn’t Sonic’s problem. 

“It’s been a hell of a day,” Jet fielded, voice dipping with martyrdom. 

“It’s always a hell of a day.”

“Half those human stiffs won’t even look me in the eye. None of them think we have anything worth trading. And I’m… I’m just a bird in there. It’s lonely… and you’re lonely too, aren’t you?” Jet stepped closer, shrinking the space between them to whispers and feather brushes. “I just figured… maybe we could forget it for a night. Like we used to.” 

Fingers ghosted over Sonic’s arm, too familiar. Too rehearsed.

“That’s not what this is,” Sonic denied, holding his ground. Brushes that didn’t spark goosebumps weren’t worth revisiting memories and forgetting them again over.

“You sure?” Jet tilted his head, angling in like he already knew the answer – the one he’d decided it would be. “’Cause I know that look you get when you want something – you don’t like being alone.”

“I’d rather be alone,” Sonic said, sharp now, stepping away. “Than be someone you crawl to when your ego’s bleeding.”

“I miss you, alright?” Jet played to Sonic’s threadbare sympathy. “I miss when it was simple. When we didn’t have the whole planet riding our backs. You remember what that felt like? To just… win. You and me.”

“Jet,” Sonic warned.

“We were good,” the Hawk pressed. “And you can lie all you want, act like I’m the bad guy, but I know you still feel it.”

“You don’t know a damn thing,” Sonic snapped, yanking his arm back. 

Jet didn’t back off. Still too close. Still talking. Feathers flaring.

“So what, now you’re too good for me? ‘Cause you’re playing spaceman with the science experiment?”

“You’re jealous.”

“Sonic, he’s a weapon. He’s neutralizing you.” Jet knew more than Sonic did, he always did. But that sure sounded like he was considered as much a weapon as Shadow was. His hands fisted so hard his gloves creaked.

“Better than getting aimed by grimey street feathers,” Sonic ground out through clenched canines.

“What? Is he a better fuck?” Sonic barely had time to process his anger before his fist collided with Jet’s face. The bird staggered back, beak curling. His eyes burned, furious and hurt and something else Sonic didn’t want to name. 

Jet stared at him, breathing hard, feathers twitching at his neck and wrists, like he didn’t know whether to fight or flee. The hedgehog stood his ground, chest heaving, fist still half-raised. 

Jet blinked once. Twice. Then he laughed like a common loon.

“Still hit like you mean it,” he said through a wince, fingers probing the forming bruise. Sonic turned away, jaw tight, eyes flicking toward the window again. The planet glowed below them, so impossibly far. 

“I’m not yours. I wasn’t even yours when we were together.”

“Bullshit,” Jet scoffed. 

“You cheated, Pigeon-fucker,” Sonic spat.

“She was a mourning dove!” The hawk defended. 

“I don’t care how sad she was – do you only do it with people when they’re crying?” 

“That’s… not–” Jet saw the issue, and yeah he knew how many birds there were in the world, but doves were far from rare, easier to spot than a blue jay. Or maybe Sonic was too upset to remember a bird he’d seen as often as a sparrow. Jet decided to level, bring the point back to base. “Look, she wasn’t an enemy. ”

Sonic didn’t have the energy to correct him anymore, opting to throw his ex’s own line back at him three years later. “Same species compatibility is better, isn’t it? Your words.”

“You’re slipping,” he accused, out of straws to grasp.

“I’m done being your safety net. I’m not here to hold you together every time the mission shakes.”

For a second, Jet didn’t move. His feathers twitched like a ruffled flag, windless and defeated. Then his mouth pressed into a line, and he turned, almost mechanical. The door hissed open at his presence.

The hawk didn’t look back. Sonic walked back to the window, bracing a glove against the glass, watching earth swim in the dark again. A blue forehead met a cool, star spotted panel. 

He hadn’t wanted to come here.

Not to space. Not to politics. Not to Jet’s unraveling. He missed grass between his toes. Missed wind. Missed the buzz of life that didn’t feel manufactured or monitored. He missed choice. 

Running trails. Ocean wind. Friends he’d waited too long to hug.

So he stood there, and watched the world turn without him.

XXX

It had just been a ping on his communicator – a harmless alert: Celestial Ball: Tomorrow. No explanation. No context. And no elaboration from Shadow, who’d seen it flash across Sonic’s screen and offered nothing in return. And Sonic wasn’t exactly on speaking terms with Jet, nor did he wish to be. 

So when the cafeteria was filled during a recess from negotiations, Sonic ignored protocol, crossing the room and sliding onto the bench across from Maria.  She looked up slowly, as if resurfacing. She looked worn, though not as worn as Jet. Like she was carrying pressure herself, wasn’t simply applying it to the bird. The stars in her eyes condensed, but her posture remained disciplined. 

She still looked at Sonic like he was all there. Like maybe in another timeline, they’d be friends. 

“Thank you,” she started, before he could open his mouth. “For being friends with Shadow.” That word made his chest ache. He didn’t want to say it himself.

Sonic’s eyes dropped to his tray. He picked at a corner of protein bread, shrugged. “Yeah, he’s uhm… he’s a good one.” Maria smiled at that.

“I was really excited for him to meet people that looked like him.”

“How did he get here, if he hadn't been to earth?” 

“I should’ve figured he wouldn’t share much,” she relayed. “I’m sure he’ll open up when the time is right… But,” She leaned forward, lowering her voice just enough to hush the ambient room noise. “I was hoping you could convince him to join us for the Celestial Ball tomorrow.”

Sonic squinted. “That’s what the notification was?”

“Mmhm. We call it that because it always coincides with a significant stellar alignment. This year, it’s a lunar eclipse and a solar flare. A rare intersection. So, we celebrate.”

“Celebrate?”

“We clear one of the star-galleries,” she explained, smiling. “String up lights, pipe in real music, synth good food. Everyone dresses up – we dance, we drink. It’ll be a good break, everyone is tense over the agreement.”

Sonic so badly wanted to ask what the agreement was, why it took so long. But he knew it wasn’t for him to know, knew how easily he let details fall out in conversation. 

“Shadow’s not exactly the dancing type.”

“No. He’s not.” Maria folded her hands in front of her, just above her tray. “He never is. But I think he would be, for you.”

Sonic blushed, didn’t even try to hide it. His eyes widened, wondering if Shadow talked about him to Maria.Wondering if he said such straightforward, nice things to her. 

“And you’ll need something formal,” she added, brisk now, like she was moving to wrap the conversation. “I’ll send you the coordinates to my nephew’s workshop. He’s hardly ever anywhere else.”

“Your nephew?” 

The overhead speakers buzzed softly with a change in tone – a signal, maybe, that lunch was over. Maria was already gathering her tray.

“He’s good with a needle,” she revealed, rising. “You’ll dazzle.”

“Maria– ” Sonic started.

She turned back only once, and just for a moment. Her voice was quieter than before, almost an afterthought.

“Don’t forget. You must convince Shadow to partake.” Her eyes dropped, misty and honest. “It may be his last one.”

And then she was gone.

Sonic sat there for a beat, the noise of the room washing back in around him. He looked down at his half-eaten meal, then back toward the far doors where Maria had vanished along with the rest of the suits in the hall. 

He wasn’t sure what she meant by ‘his last,’ but he couldn’t bring himself to focus on that – any moment could be any of their last. Instead, he wondered if Shadow would go, and what he would wear, and what stories Sonic might share if he did. 

XXX

The workshop doors hissed open, and Sonic stepped inside, eyes immediately adjusting to a constellation of workshop lights. Tools dangled from the ceiling. Bolts of fabric were stacked like scrolls along one wall, and bright white light spilled from overheads, catching on chrome limbs and metallic mannequins lined up like half-finished soldiers. But instead of weapons, they wore gowns, capes, tunics with integrated circuitry.

Sonic hadn’t seen anyone wear anything like this on the ARK. It was so… showy. 

“Don’t just stand there like a question mark. Come in or the auto-lock will assume you’re a trespasser.” Ivo Robotnik was hunched over a table, threading a needle with mechanical precision. Trim mustache freshly waxed, goggles glinting against wavey orange hair, shirt collar rolled up, vest smudged with chalk and oil. His hands moved with purpose. Sonic got the sense they always did.

“Maria sent you,” Robotnik added, voice brisk. Not a question. “About the Celestial Ball.”

Sonic cleared his throat. “Uh… yeah. She said you’d help me look the part.”

“I help the ARK remember what elegance looks like,” Robotnik corrected, finally straightening to assess his visitor over the rim of glasses. “You’ll be a challenge. So much… blue.”

Sonic tilted his head, defensive. “I don’t need anything flashy.” 

Robotnik made a noise of disdain and waved him toward a raised platform surrounded by angled mirrors. Sonic stepped up to it, looking at his reflection for the first time in a while. His fur felt duller than he remembered it, when he really looked at it. 

“You’re attending a ball,” he deadpanned. “Subtle isn’t in your vocabulary. So let’s not pretend it belongs on your shoulders.” 

Sonic shrugged. “Well, I figured maybe I could just wear something of Shadow’s–”

“Oh, absolutely not. You’re a completely different build,” Robotnik prattled, already circling him with a tape measure. “You’re… narrower.” It was said off-handedly, like it wasn’t an insult, an aside as Robotnik jotted down a note in his datapad.

He reached for Sonic’s wrist, flicked the tape measure across his forearm, and then without asking, plucked a quill from the back of his head.

“Hey!” Sonic flinched, spinning to glare.

Robotnik held up the blue-tipped spike, admiring it like it was a rare alloy. “Relax. I need to make sure I have a color reference. And don’t look so offended – you shed.”

“I do not shed,” he countered, deciding that Maria’s nephew was a weirdo. 

“Turn. Arms out.” Sonic rolled his eyes but obliged, arms lifted as the tall man measured him with exacting efficiency.

“I just don’t wanna match Jet,” Sonic muttered, daring to throw out a pout.

“Ah,” he received, turning. “Emotional motivation. Excellent. I can work with that.” Robotnik was already moving, flitting between garment racks like a conductor in a closet. He returned moments later with a bolt of lavender and navy brocade, overlayed with a translucent pearled mesh that caught the light like starlight on snow. Gold threads laced through both fabrics like veins.

 He laid the two together, happy with the choice. “Do you prefer pants or dresses?”
“I’m a guy.”

“Do you prefer pants or a dress?” Robotnik repeated like pressed linen, failing to see how it was a hard question to answer. And the truth was that Sonic preferred neither – just his runners and the wind on his coat. But he was among humans and their customs, and it was a ball – so he went with pants. 

Robotnik nodded like he already knew. “Fitted, high-waist. Boots visible. Drape in the sleeve, not the leg.” Robotnik waved him off. “Go on now, hedgehog. I’ll have it delivered to your room before the event.”

“Should I–”

“Leave me to it,” Robotnik directed firmly, done with the conversation. He had art to create. The orange haired man disappeared behind the curtain, the cloth swinging once like a clock’s quiet tick.

XXX

Night came quicker than Sonic liked – probably because he’d spent most of the day pretending he wasn’t nervous about asking Shadow to the ball. It was cliched in a way it shouldn't be because they were just friends. Friends that shared lingering looks and far too much space and time – but friends certainly. 

But here, racing beside someone who could keep pace, who met his speed and returned it with equal force, he could forget. The way neon cracked and licked over their limbs, the way the energy panels below them pulsed with each strike – it made him feel like he was in a video game. And that was fun. Shadow had been right – Sonic had needed to stretch his legs. 

And Shadow... Shadow looked effortlessly cool even in the blur. Crimson eyes locked on the next curve, fur swept back, perfectly in rhythm and balance. Black and red flicked in gold, dazzling against a motion blurred, brilliantly colorful background. When Sonic was on these runs, it felt like they were the only two people in the… in everything. 

Sonic longed to see him against forests and fields, skies and earth tones. See his face warmed by real sun, watch the prick of his ears at the hint of gulls on the coast line. Sonic kep catching himself imagining Shadow beside him on the cliffs of Emerald Coast. Somewhere far away from the synthetic lights, the neon glow of reinforced glass and metal interior. Shadow, breathing in real air.

It was stupid. Daydreams for another reality.

Because Shadow was meant for space, and Sonic was meant for the ground. That was fact. 

He pulled ahead just slightly during their final sprint, the fifth hundred-lap in a row. Neither of them celebrated the win. They just kept moving, gradually easing their pace until they peeled off the track together, breath ragged, adrenaline tapering.

Sonic bent at the waist, hands braced on his knees, sweat dripping in slow trails from his quills. His chest heaved. A few feet away, Shadow stood upright, arms crossed – trying to look composed, but Sonic could hear it in his breathing. He was tired too.

They stood like that in the hum of the core, neither speaking for a minute. Then Sonic wiped a forearm across his brow and cleared his throat.

“There’s a thing tonight,” the blur began, feigning casualness. “Maria called it the Celestial Event. Big party. Music. Fancy clothes. I imagine some bad dancing.”

“And you’re going?” Shadow queried with a sidelong glance.

Sonic straightened with a soft groan, cracking his neck. “Got roped into it. Figured… maybe you should come too.”

“I don’t like parties,” Shadow replied factually. “Too loud.” 

“You don’t have to stay long,” Sonic provided after a beat, aiming for casual. “Just… might be nice to have a familiar face there. One that doesn’t immediately try to grab my waist.” As soon as he said it, Sonic realized he wouldn’t actually mind if Shadow tried to, wanted to – and that thought was enough to make him glance away, scratching at his muzzle to hide a flicker of a blush. Better not to dwell on hopes he shouldn’t be having.

Shadow held his breath, standing himself, hands on his head for air. “Jet,” he fished.

“Jet,” Sonic confirmed with a sigh.

Shadow looked away, considering something in the rhythm of the floor’s light pulses. Then, softly, “I’ll think about it.”

XXX

Shadow watched Sonic walk away – still damp with sweat, quills wild from wind, his gait easy like his body hadn’t realized the sprint was over. Like inertia was all he knew, and if he stopped, something else might catch up. 

And Shadow knew permanence wouldn’t fit him. Not the kind that Shadow wanted, was meant for himself. Even so, there was no denying the way he wanted to fall into the other’s orbit, felt the gravity of it every time Sonic smiled, laughed, looked at him like they might understand each other. He liked seeing someone else burn like he did, full of speed and bite and something restless just under the skin. Liked that he wasn’t the only one with all this energy bottled inside.

Shadow liked Sonic. A lot. Too much.

Too much because Sonic hated being here. Too much, because every glance toward the stars came with a peach muzzled sigh. Too much, because the ARK’s routines, which Shadow had always found stabilizing, seemed to grate against Sonic’s nature. He was a spark, a disruption, a day that never repeated.

Too much because Shadow hated parties less than he hated thinking of someone else’s hands on Sonic’s waist. And Shadow didn’t know what to do with that jealousy – where to put it, how to justify it – when Sonic would never belong to him.

Too much because they weren’t meant to be. 

Shadow had seen that truth reflected in emerald eyes every time Sonic talked about Earth like it was a lover, a birthplace, a promise . He described ocean wind like it was a friend, referred to trails like they had memories, called upon the warmth of the sun on his fur like it was a reason to continue. 

Sonic was homesick in his bones. 

And that wasn’t an ailment Shadow could help fix. Shadow had space. He had the ARK. A mausoleum of infinite progress, of preserved routines so efficient they were sustainable. He had Maria, and Ivo, memories of Gerald – family. This was the only home he’d ever known. 

And he’d thought feeling at home would have been enough. But running with Sonic, listening to Sonic’s stories, matching energy with Sonic… it all made him feel more and more that what his life had been so far wasn’t enough. 

Without the blue blur to lead and chase after, maybe it never would be.

And that was dangerous.

Because temporary wasn’t something Shadow could afford. 

Chapter Text

Jet had tried to sweep Sonic away the moment he arrived – preened feathers, too-white teeth, all oily confidence and the kind of charm that came with a script, acting like they hadn’t left a mess behind. Like nothing between them had ever needed untangling.

Sonic had dodged every advance, half out of habit, half out of ache. He was tired of being handled. Tired of holding everything up. So instead of dancing, he played diplomat. Maria looped an arm through his, guiding him with the soft familiarity of someone who had known him longer than time itself.

She introduced him to the staff, to the engineer who’d retrofitted the ballroom’s artificial wind, to the chef who explained the science behind the crudantes drifting on silver platters. Something about molecular bonding and taste-fade. But Sonic couldn’t make heads or tails of the science of it because he was busy skimming the edges of the room for black and red.

His own outfit shimmered. The gossamer mesh of his shirt fluttered like mist, pearled and sheer, layered over blue fur and peach chest fluff. Brocade slacks hugged his legs, colored in bruised dusk tones – lavender, lapis, periwinkle. A matching corset cinched his waist, trimmed in gold thread that caught the light. Jewelry had been laid out for him and he’d worn most of it. It wasn’t his usual style, but it felt right tonight.

The ballroom glittered under the dome’s refracted starlight. Pillars twisted upward like spun sugar, and soft light poured down from hidden panels. The music was strange – 1950s rhythm rewoven with synthwave, ghostly harmonies conjured by some AI’s half-remembered jazz. Not familiar, not unfamiliar – dreamlike. Nothing Sonic recognized, but it moved the crowd of space dwellers dancing beneath what Sonic assumed were the same decorations they did every time they threw a party. 

When the tempo dipped into a slow roll, Sonic felt a tap on his shoulder. Jet, again.

Sonic didn’t even turn fully. “We’re not talking on purpose,” he reminded dryly.

“But it’s a nice night,” Jet countered.

“And I’d like it to stay that way,” Sonic sassed, spinning off in another direction.

The air was too warm, despite the artificial climate controls. He decided to take a break, ducking from the crowd and stepping into the corridor. By Maria’s estimate, there were at least another twenty minutes before the main event would sparkle to life, so he took his time strolling past a hall of murals, focusing on his breathing in the tight corset. 

His dress shoes eventually guided him to the lower observation deck, right to Shadow – silhouetted against the galaxy beyond. 

He stood with his back to the door, watching the curve of space through reinforced glass. His suit was stark – black-on-black – but the red stitching curved in precise arcs along the cuffs and collar, echoing the lines of his markings. 

“You’re not coming up?” Sonic asked.

Shadow turned just enough to acknowledge him. “Didn’t you just leave?” 

“Only taking a break because you weren’t up there.” Shadow glanced up at the sky through the glass dome. 

“These happen every six years – you grow used to routine.” Six years was an odd interval to call routine, in all honesty. But maybe when everything was on an interval, a timer, a lazy Susan, even six years could feel stale.

“Or you learn to avoid it,” Sonic replied knowingly, stepping beside him, their reflections making him aware of their easy proximity, their shoulders nearly touching after a simple greeting. “You know,” Sonic started, watching him in profile, “sometimes I imagine what you’d look like in sunlight. Real sunlight.”

Shadow was quiet for a moment. “I’ve never been to Earth. I’ve seen it from here. Studied it. But haven’t… walked it.”

Sonic blinked, lounged over the railing in front of them. “Do you like anything about it?”

“You.” Shadow’s gaze lingered, taking in the way the hedgehog shimmered blue like moonlight. Pearled mesh sleeves floated as he moved, exposing the soft of his chest far too romantically to have been designed for any other response. 

Sonic flushed, ears dipping. “Okay, that’s unfair,” he muttered, eyes darting away, a hand concealing his muzzle’s overreaction. “I meant something real. Like food. Or wind. Or... something stupid.”

Shadow hummed. “Flowers.”

“They don’t have those here?”

“Not anymore. They died out during an early, localized blight. Crops are manufactured now. No one saw the point in bringing back ornamentals. You didn’t notice?”

“I hadn’t thought about it, honestly. Guess I’ve been distracted.”

“What about you?” Shadow asked. “Your favorite?”

Sonic thought for a moment. “Forest runs in early spring. When the dew’s still on the ground and the sun hasn’t burned through the mist. You can run through five forests in a day and never see the same leaf twice.”

“Hmmm,” Shadow received.

“You’d like it,” Sonic added, almost a whisper.

“I’m not built for Earth,” he decided, eyes tracing the horizon.

“If anyone was, they’d take better care of it.”

Outside, the sky darkened then bloomed with quiet magic.

The lunar eclipse swept across the stars – Earth’s shadow slicing across the moon in a slow, delicate veil. Moments later, the sun peeled across the opposite edge of the view, a solar flare arcing in fierce golden thread. Twin events, one swallowing light, one vomiting it into being. Beautiful and brutal.

Sonic turned back to Shadow, watching how the flare caught gold in his fur, studying the angles of his face under the star-filtered light. “Maria said you weren’t one to dance.”

“She’d be correct.”

“Wanna prove her wrong?” Sonic requested, hand extended to meet Shadow’s hesitation where it was at, hoping to stir up that competitive streak. Shadow uncrossed his arms, pressed open hands against the railing experimentally. “Please,” Sonic coaxed gently, palm up. “Jet keeps trying to grab me, and my legs could use the stretch.”

He was being bold, stepping over the line too easily. But Shadow was giving him enough signs that he felt confident in their direction tonight. He hadn’t pulled away, hadn’t drawn new boundaries. Just looked at Sonic like the request deserved thought.

Shadow didn’t answer immediately. His eyes lingered on Sonic’s outstretched hand, on the rings glinting on his fingers, on the ridiculous perfection of the hedgehog in front of him – soft, resplendent, entirely real.

And then, Shadow gave a barely-there nod. 

“Just one dance,” Sonic promised, speaking in sunlight and bright ideas. It was out of character for Shadow, but he smiled at the break from everyday. “I don’t want to waste these outfits Ivo created.” 

Shadow’s fingers slipped into Sonic’s, giving the slightest squeeze as he pulled him gently forward, past the edge of the balcony. They were warm and homey, easily confident. And those were the traits that staggered Shadow the most, as he followed this guy who cut through halls like he’d lived here for years. And even though it had only been a few months, they felt like the most significant moments of Shadow’s life. 

So he hated parties, but he wanted to see Sonic at one. And he couldn’t dance, but stepping onto the dance floor next to Sonic felt like gliding. 

The lights inside were lowered, all soft pinks and warm golds diffused through fogged glass. Couples swayed in pairs across the dance floor, ones Sonic assumed had been together for a very long time. 

Sonic moved carefully through the crowd, taking time to let Shadow adjust. Shadow’s palm was still clasped to Sonic’s, unnoticed but not hidden.  

They reached the far side of the floor, where the speakers were muffled and the crowd thinned. Where it was comfortable for eyes to drift, hands to brush, words to hush. This moment was for them, not for the room.

Shadow couldn’t help but wonder how easily Sonic fit into this atmosphere, how his face sparkled like it was a moment meant to last. The jewelry must have been outside his usual fashion because his ears were flicking every so often.

“Here’s good, right?” 

“As good as any,” Shadow managed to string together, tracking Sonic’s left hand as it rested over his shoulder, easy and loose. His words felt clumsy in comparison to the familiarity of the hedgehog’s hand. Shadow let his free hand find Sonic’s ribcage. High enough to excuse with formality, low enough to feel how warm Sonic was beneath the layers. His other hand still held Sonic’s, fingers laced tight.

And they began to sway. Sonic and Shadow weren’t practiced, but that free way Sonic had of moving loosened Shadow’s shoulders just enough that they looked like they had. 

It wasn’t that Shadow felt awkward about dancing. The concept was fine… he’d just never thought there would be someone who’d be able to meet his eyes, stand tall with him through it… make him feel like gravity had doubled. 

Shadow found the rhythm secondhand, on Sonic’s cues. The gentle push of a hand at his shoulder, the subtle squeeze of his hand on every downbeat, the subtle press of a hip, the rise and fall of breath. Two-one-two, two-one. The way Sonic’s thumb kept tracing a slow, grounding circle across the back of his hand. 

Two-one-two, two-one turn melted into another. Two-one-two, two-one song gave way to the next, neither let go. Two-one-two, two-one of them had to look away, no one’s eyes should hold that much hope, not this far from the ground. Two-one-two, two-one night though, perhaps, wouldn’t hurt if they did hope. 

Two-one-two, two-one. They spun, formal and cordial, until a song too slow to move to slipped through the speakers. The kind with lyrics about falling in love, and it threw the unspoken couple into blushing uncertainty. 

The music had slowed, but the collision of Sonic’s heart into his throat did not. The air between felt warmer, more out of place than it had before. 

Shadow leaned in slightly.

“Can I…?” he murmured against the delicate line of Sonic’s ear, one hand hovering just above a corseted waist, the other gently curled behind his back. He didn’t make contact, not until Sonic gave him the smallest nod, eyes wide and wanting.

The pressure was subtle but sure, drawing Sonic closer until there was no room left for doubt between them. Until Sonic could feel the heat of him, the unmistakable outline of their closeness, their hips barely brushing.

“You set a precedent like this, I’m gonna start expecting things,” Sonic blushed, relishing in the soft touch of hands to him, intentional, purposeful, hinting at the possibility for more. At this point, his corset might’ve been the only thing holding him up. 

Shadow’s hands made him too aware of his body, of every inch of space that they weren’t. 

Sonic loved it. He loved the restraint, the way Shadow moved like Sonic was something sacred, like crossing a line meant there was no going back. His hands rested, restraint was somehow worse than the frantic, roaming, suggestive feathers that Sonic had allowed himself to think was enough.

But Shadow was dancing on obligation, diplomacy… or convenience maybe. He wasn’t even trying and Sonic was well past halfway to hopeless. 

This wasn’t fair.

Sonic dipped his head, letting his forehead rest lightly against Shadow’s temple, voice barely leaving his throat. “I think I’ve been aiming too low.”

Shadow glanced down. “Should I move my hand?” He was completely serious, worried he’d encountered a faux pas. 

“No, no, it’s fine,” Sonic soothed through fond breath. “Just… talking to myself.”

Shadow didn’t seem to mind, falling into rhythm with steady, grounded steps. Sonic found himself looking at their feet more than anything, trying to ignore how small and out of place they felt dancing between humans.

When Sonic looked up from where their hands were joined, he found Shadow already watching him. Intelligent, brown red instead of glowing ruby – so different than when they were running. So much deeper. 

“Who made you?” Shadow whispered, red searching green like he was looking for details he shouldn’t miss.

“Made?” Sonic echoed as Shadow’s hand drifted upward, brushing cobalt quills back with unexpected gentleness. Butterflies fluttered up in his gut, tickled his limbs in hope. 

“Everything is made,” Shadow countered. 

“I think if I was made,” he cocked a small smile made just for Shadow, “I’d know my purpose.” The teasing landed, drawing a low rumble from Shadow as his arms slipped more securely around Sonic’s waist. Shadow’s hand returned to settle lightly on the hero’s back. Sonic melted into the hold, his own hand curling around Shadow’s nape.

“Even then,” Shadow murmured, “that’s hardly been clear to me.”

And Sonic didn’t know how to answer that, didn’t actually know what they were talking about. And maybe he didn’t need to. Because right now, neither of them was trying to solve anything. Solving things wasn’t their role, nor their purpose here. 

Anything beyond the closeness of their chests didn’t matter much to him right now anyways. This careful intimacy Shadow was allowing made Sonic happy.

They didn’t speak again for a while. And in that silence, nothing was missing.

Not even the truth.

XXX

“Tired?” Shadow asked after Sonic yawned a third time, stretching just enough for the mesh of his shirt to shift across his ribs.

Sonic only nodded, lids low.

“I’ll walk you back,” Shadow offered, hand on his arm again for no discernible reason, because he couldn’t help wanting to be close. Red and green leveled, explored, danced over the other’s body language, wondering if tonight was the night they finally gave themselves permission to experience what the other had to offer.

“You don’t have to,” Sonic looked down, half-smile tugging at his lips, tired and warm and disarmed all at once.

“I know.” 

The sound of the party dulled as soon as the doors slid closed behind them. Only their shared footsteps remained, the sound barely registering over the press of their thoughts.

Shadow led him down a quieter path by the sleeve, away from the grand hall’s usual exits. Instead, they took turns down hallways that grew softer, quieter until they stepped into the skywalk.

The corridor stretched above open space, every wall and panel made of glass, letting the galaxy spill in. The eclipse had passed its peak, the full moon now cloaked in deep rust, while solar flares danced faintly on the opposite horizon. It painted them in hues of gold and red, like they were walking through firelight.

Shadow's reflection moved beside Sonic’s as they made their way through the walk, taking in the cascading colors of the eternal night around them. Shadow’s thumb dragged slightly across the fabric of Sonic’s sleeve before he let it go.

But Sonic didn’t let go. He caught his hand before it dropped completely, lacing their fingers loosely. The move was far from tentative, as if Sonic had been holding that striped hand in his head for months already.

Shadow's reflection moved beside Sonic’s as they made their way through the walk, taking in the cascading colors of the eternal night around them. The skywalk was cool and quiet, the world outside painted in copper light and drifting stars. Sonic’s voice, when it came, felt low and sincere.

“I think you did good tonight,” Sonic complimented.

Shadow glanced over. Sonic’s quills were slightly mussed, glitter caught between the tips like stardust. He felt his heart leaping out of his chest, wanting to get him deep into emotions his brain couldn’t imagine processing. 

“You asked me to stay,” was all Shadow allowed himself to reply with. 

When they reached the door to Sonic’s quarters, it recognized him immediately. The seam hissed open with a soft exhale of pressurized air. But they didn’t move. Sonic lingered in the doorway, one hand still on the seam where the wall met the frame, the other catching the embroidered edge of Shadow’s coat, ready to put his heart on the line. 

“What if I asked you to keep staying?” Sonic asked slowly, like he was afraid this was the part where the magic broke.

The pause that followed was unbearably soft, like time was watching them carefully, waiting to see what they'd choose.

Shadow’s eyes flicked down, just once, to Sonic’s parted lips – and for one too-long heartbeat, it felt like he might lean in, cross the distance even a breath could travel. 

Shadow felt the press of possibility, the raw invitation in the curve of Sonic’s mouth, the pulse of his throat, the way fingers clung to fabric like it meant something.

Intense. Sharing time with Sonic like this, it felt intense. Like a sugar high, a runner’s high. And Shadow knew he’d be a disaster on the other side of knowing Sonic any more than he did right now. 

“Don’t ask unless you mean it,” Shadow murmured, words close enough to brush Sonic’s mouth, firm enough to send Sonic’s tail swishing.

“I wouldn’t,” Sonic lipped, earnest. He’d been starving, and if Shadow was down then he really had to stop teasing the chance that there could be more. Because he meant it. Every part of him meant it.

For one long, suspended second, his striped hand lingered. Even unpracticed, the graze of ebony over blue was dizzying, or maybe Sonic had gone longer than he had ever gone without. When the touch began to trail away, Sonic saw on Shadow’s face that each inch of retreat spelt something he had no idea how to say out loud. 

His smile, small and unreadable, said almost , said not yet , said maybe if you ask again . A parting that felt anything but finished.

Then, quiet as ever, “Goodnight, Sonic.”

Sonic stood there a full minute after it did, hand still hovering near the spot Shadow had touched. The air fizzled in his absence, in the spot where a kiss might’ve been, where more might still grow. 

The moment stayed as Shadow left, a parting that felt anything but finished. 

It hadn’t been a no.

He stepped into his quarters, barely noticing the lights rising to meet him. The door stayed open a half-second longer than it should’ve. Sonic turned, slowly, one hand brushing the edge of the doorframe the way he’d brushed Shadow’s sleeve. 

He didn’t change. Didn’t move to bed.

He just sat down on the edge of it, jacket still on, shoes still buckled, replaying the afterimage of Shadow in the skywalk, silhouetted by the flare of solar fire, holy. Drew his finger pads over his palm, recalling how fingers laced like it had never been a question.

The air still smelled like the party. Like sugar and skin and something spiced he couldn’t name. Sonic looked down at the floor, a small smile ghosting across his lips.

“Don’t ask unless you mean it.”

“I meant it.”

XXX

“You look nice tonight.” Maria’s voice was soft, young as it had been for forty years. Shadow turned, and there she was, stepping out from a side corridor she’d clearly been waiting in, not intrusively. The silver gown shimmered in the low light, delicate starlight beading along the neckline like constellations, chiffon cascading over her shoulders, plummeting like a waterfall to the floor below. 

“You look…sparkly…for your standards.” Maria had always opted for matte looks, nearly boyish silhouettes. The granddaughter of the original Gerald Robotnik had a lot on her shoulders, so she’d never bothered with fashion. “That’s Ivo’s doing. He says the neckline was inspired by the Andromeda Array. I say he just wanted a reason to sew glitter into something again.”

Shadow laughed. 

“You danced,” she added, “Shadow, you actually danced.”

“It was just one.”

“It was more than that,” she said, and before he could ask what she meant, she slipped her arm around his, gently pulling them into motion down the quiet corridor, her pace unhurried, her shoulder warm against his.

Shadow didn’t answer right away. His heart was still somewhere in the press of Sonic’s palm. “I didn’t hate it.”

“He looked happy.”

“Did he?” Shadow’s voice was careful, neutral.

“I think he likes you,” Maria played.

“No idea where you’d get that idea,” Shadow quipped. Maria slowed, just a bit, and bent low with mock seriousness, catching his gaze from below, her tone warm with sisterly affection.

“Gerald would scold you,” she teased, smiling knowingly, “for making him ask again.” That stopped Shadow, caught his breath on embarrassment. The blush that rose was subdued but undeniable.

“I know,” he admitted, “I’m just–”

“Scared?” Maria offered, not unkindly.

“He’s not like us…” Shadow whispered, “I won’t get to keep him.”

“You never know what you get to keep,” she posited, reaching up to adjust a stray thread near his collar – an old habit. “That’s not a reason not to hold it.” Maria’s fingers squeezed his arm, subtle but grounding as they walked the next few steps in silence.

Shadow didn’t know what Maria had been carrying on her face before she smiled. Didn’t see the way she blinked harder than usual, or how she looked like she might hug him tighter if she let herself.

This was his last ball on the ARK. She already knew. But for tonight, she let him have it, forcing herself to keep her sentimentality to herself. 

“You’re brave enough for this,” she said finally, for both of them, as they reached the main corridor fork. “Even if you’re still learning how to be.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, so he just held her gaze. She let go of his arm with a soft pat.

“Get some rest, Shadow.”

Chapter Text

Sonic was riding a high that didn’t know how to come down. His body thrummed with the warmth of being wanted, with the thrill of maybe. The taste of something almost his lingered on his lips.

More felt inevitable. 

So when the knock came at his door, he let himself believe. Just for a breath. He pictured Shadow on the other side, eyes dark as velvet, coming back because waiting was a mistake. He ran a hand down his mesh sleeve, smoothed the front of the corset like it mattered, brushed his quills down. And when he opened the door, chest calmed, Sonic was ready to grab that tan muzzle with his own hands and just make it happen. 

But it wasn’t Shadow.

It was the opposite of Shadow, if you discounted the red liner, chest fluff, and competitive streak.

The hawk stood in the hallway, wings drawn tight to his back, chest rising in clipped, high breaths like he’d flown the length of the ARK on adrenaline alone. Sonic answered in the same attire Shadow had last seen him in twenty minutes ago. He’d laid on the bed, chasing his own thoughts in circles, not bothering to change. He wasn’t ready to let the moment go. 

“You good?” Sonic asked, eye ridges drawn out of courtesy alone.

Jet didn’t answer – just brushed past him into the room, collapsing onto the edge of the bed like his legs had finally given out. His feathers were mussed. His eyes were too sharp, too wide, like they were still catching up to what he’d learned. His eyes, normally cocksure, coastal turquoise had faded to ghost grey, dull seaglass. 

“What?” Sonic asked again, softer this time. “What is it, Jet?”

“Sonic,” Jet called, like he was in shock.

“Talk to me.”

Jet swallowed hard. “They’re all… they’re all… immortal. ” Jet's voice was hushed, like even saying it out loud made it realer than it should be. “They don’t make choices like we do. Not on our time. It’s like sanding fucking cement. You think they’re deliberating, stalling – they’re not. They just don’t care to rush anything. Why would they? They have forever. ”

“How did you–”

“And we’re what? Temporary? Disposable? We don’t even register,” Jet continued on through as if Sonic hadn’t asked. He was still processing the information, Sonic realized. 

They were four months in and only now learned such a detail. It was one they kept close to their chest, one they’d only mention if in the way of something practical, one share when it became impossible not to. Which meant, something had shifted. Something was coming. 

And whether that was independence for the ARK or a death laser to their home wasn’t knowable. 

Something told Sonic, ate away at his insides, that nothing good was coming from this.

“Jet,” he anchored, but he didn’t have the words to follow it.

Jet looked at him like he was the only solid thing left in a world that had suddenly tilted sideways. “We’re cooked, ” he said hoarsely. “G.U.N. sent me here to negotiate – oh, fuck – What am I going to tell G.U.N? U.F.E?”

And Sonic didn’t understand it all the way Jet did.  He didn’t see the whole board or the Jenga tower shaking. What he saw was a guy built on control unraveling, and no one else here to catch the fall.

And if Jet couldn’t bear it, then Sonic had to.

Even if he didn’t understand it all, even if his heartbeat hadn’t fully come down from the night, even if his mind kept drifting somewhere quieter, somewhere warmer, where someone else was waiting for him under star-washed hallways.

Sonic didn’t say anything. Just sat down next to Jet, let their shoulders touch, stayed.

XXX

Sonic wasn’t sure why he did it, couldn’t explain what ultimately motivated him to look at Shadow in the middle of a sunset and ask, “So how many of these will you see in your lifetime?”

The question earned him a push to the ground, a hand over his muzzle, and red eyes that told him he shouldn’t have crossed that line. Their noses were inches apart. Sonic could feel Shadow’s breath on his cheek. Sonic wondered if Shadow knew he was able to be understated. 

“…You know,” Sonic said, pulling the loose hand from his mouth, “you’re allowed to just say a lot. ”

Shadow searched Sonic’s face for something, maybe it was trust, assurance, Sonic wasn’t sure. But he must have found it, because the next move he made was pressing a soft sentence down into Sonic’s ear, “Later.”

The word brushed past like a secret, not meant to last longer than the breath it was carried by. And it was almost convincing, but for a few moments too many, Shadow stayed close. Either not knowing or not caring that their chests were too close for friends. 

Then, Shadow seemed to register exactly how much distance neither of them had, brushing imaginary dust from his arms as he sat back to pretend they’d never shrunk the space between. He’s so honest.

Sonic took his shoulders and flipped them, allowing more distance than Shadow had, smiling. “Later, where?”

Shadow’s eyes widened, irises glinting like Saturn’s rings, before turning his head to the side, ears flicking back. His lids had fallen in avoidance, quills fanning out on the grass with his hands held over his head. “My room,” he decided, rolling his eyes back to Sonic’s like he hadn’t made the choice. “I’ll send you the coordinates.”

Sonic drank in the blush on his face, feeling much more focused on the current moment, however many of those anyone had left. 

“So it’s a lot, then.”

XXX

Sonic wasn’t exactly known for thinking before he spoke, and if his questions landed in the wrong place, he could usually laugh his way out of the trouble that usually followed. But sometimes, that impulsiveness brought him places no map could chart. 

Like Shadow’s innermost quarters, dimly lit, soft gold and overwhelming. Shadows hung on the walls like they were used to being left alone. Everything had a place, organized and neat. There were more trinkets than Sonic would have expected – but there was a lot on this space station that had surprised Sonic. 

Like the way his breath caught so easily when Shadow all but fidgeted quietly, the way he waited on the other to just say anything if he wasn’t going to give Sonic what he was craving the most, what he wanted to be forward about. 

But most of all, more than the trinkets and cards and drawings that lined the walls and shelves of this cozy, comfy little den, Sonic hadn’t expected to look forward to the time he’d continue spending here.

Sonic kicked his legs from where they dangled off the side of the bed, the springs creaking faintly beneath him. Shadow stood across the room, pretending to look at something on a monitor that wasn’t even on. 

He wasn’t fooling either of them.

“What’s it like?” Sonic asked softly, breaching the subject that got him here in the first place, coaxing the space between them open.

“Existing?” he defined, voice hoarse with reality. “These halls don’t change. They never will. We don't age, we just keep pushing for new data, constant innovations. Nothing we discover is for us. Nothing we make is for you. It’s routine, and it’s egotistical. Profoundly so.”

These felt like details too centrally intimate to be privy to. Even so, Sonic only wanted to know, “How does it feel?” 

Asking felt like inching forward into an area of Shadow’s map he shouldn’t. But it got the spaceling to look back, slowly, as though the glance itself cost him something.

Like his rationality. 

Sonic looked pretty even when he’d kept the light low, tried to obscure the hedgehog, tame the iridescence of his coat, steal the radiance of his emerald eyes. A mistake by all accounts, because it only made the open space beside Sonic look that much nicer. 

“Like I shouldn’t be so impacted by your presence,” the hybrid replied. “I was designed for control, but I’ve been malfunctioning ever since you.” 

Shadow didn’t say it like it was romantic. He said it like it hurt.

“You know…” Sonic patted the bed beside him, offering nearness without asking for it. “You’re the only one who’s made me feel normal here. I’ve liked a lot of how you were… functioning. Heh,” Sonic laughed, scratching his face, “Without you, I probably would have launched myself out an airlock by now. Or–”

“Don’t do that,” Shadow swore, closing the distance between them to just a few, weak, crossable inches between their noses. By Sonic’s measure anyways. 

“–slept with my ex,” Sonic finished, lips quirking amusedly, searching Shadow’s face for more than his too-literal concern. The honest look in crimson eyes said Shadow wasn’t ready to say goodbye. The flutter in his simple lashes that demonstrated he wanted to see more of Sonic just because he liked his company. And maybe Sonic wasn’t the main character, but it sure felt nice to play the love interest. 

Sonic didn’t know if that was what this was. It felt easy enough that it could be. But something told him he wasn’t going to find out waiting on the sidelines, in the shallow end, stuck on the launchpad. Finding out sounded nice, sounded like Shadow might be the closest thing he’d ever see to love in his lifetime. 

So this would end, but this felt it was worth the risk. 

"I won’t,” the hedgehog hushed finally, answering Shadow’s ask, sincere. “You made it feel like I could belong here too.”

“Why would you place importance on that?” Shadow huffed teasingly. 

“I like… I like to belong,” Sonic’s voice faulted as he tilted his head, letting his voice drop just a little to make space for intimacy. “Even if I don’t always know where. Since we’re being honest, I was weird on earth.”

“Being weird doesn’t mean you don’t belong, Sonic,” Shadow spoke like he’d taken a while to learn, fought to believe that himself. 

Sonic huffed a quiet laugh. “Depends on how you package the weird, honestly.”

“How much do you hide from people?” Shadow lipped. 

“A lot more than I do from you,” Sonic mouthed back, gaze dropping, wanting to cross this stupid line. Why did it feel like they were dodging grates in the floor? What was so underspoken in this moment that they weren’t just–

“Will you show me more?” Shadow asked, lids lowering, sunlight on his lips.

Oh. 

Oh, shit. 

Shadow was leaning in, slowly, a hand on the mattress between them, the other hovering at his side like it didn’t know where to go. His eyes were closed already, like he wasn’t the one taking half seconds to second guess the easiest answer of  his life. His hand wasn’t reaching for Sonic’s thigh, or for the back of his head. No, Shadow’s hand remained planted on the bed when he discovered Sonic’s kiss. 

It wasn’t deep. The kiss was tender, deliberate. And Sonic received it, his brain feeling like static and sparkles and warmth and like oh, fuck yes, just finally . 

Shadow wanted to experience it all in as slow motion as he’d be able to. If it was true, these feelings, it was just a blip. A glimmer in the impossible march of routines, sustainability, longevity. This moment of Sonic would have to last him forever. 

Stars died all the time. Even the most distant shone like they were 10 millennia ago. And maybe 10 millennia would be apt, to sit with a sliver of Sonic’s lips on his, the flutter of his heart, the strain of his neck to reach without encroaching on the hedgehog’s space. 

Sonic waited for the teeth, the tongue, the pin down and scenting – any of the instinctual aggression that came with a first kiss. He was expecting more and less than the simple lacing of fingers over his own on the bed.

Shadow’s knee brushed his own, warm and polite. A striped hand rose to his jaw, tilting it with careful intent, like the kiss – Sonic – was something to be documented, savoured, remembered. Fingers beckoned him to fall to the side, follow Shadow down to enjoy the press of their lips from a lower altitude. 

Black and blue tails thumped against the sheets shyly. 

Propped on their elbows, knees aligned, the hand on his face traveled down to his arm, brushed his sides, their mouths softened to find the kiss again and again, breath steady until they couldn’t hold it anymore. 

Shadow felt like he was stealing time, moving lips against Sonic’s like they didn’t need to move forward, like this moment the way it was, was truly enough. He wasn’t thinking about forever right now, only right now. And for that moment, he pretended that he could think about right now, for forever. 

Sonic liked the slow pace, liked the brush of limbs that felt proper, giving and receiving admissions unspoken, details unsorted. He didn’t have any answers for where they would go from here, though maybe some questions were best left to those versions of themselves that had already experienced each other.

And then Sonic let his fervency get the better of him, reaching to stroke behind one of Shadow’s ears, receiving gravely static in return, losing the kiss as ungloved hands pushed back on his shoulders.

“What was that?” Rubies were wide across Shadow’s eyes, dilated with interest, a blush swept over his muzzle. 

“Wait... Shads.” His voice dropped to something fond, amused. “Have you not… purred before?”

“What?”

“You’re a little out of touch, aren’t ya?” He leaned back in just enough to be close, not close enough to startle. Shadow didn’t move away, but he didn’t lean in either.

“Hey. It’s okay,” Sonic soothed, bringing a hand to Shadow’s chin, guiding him back in. “It’s just instincts.”

Shadow glanced down, eyes heavy. “Do you do it too?”

“Yeah,” He dusted.

“Show me,” Shadow requested, soft, curious. So, so, so curious. 

“Okay,” Sonic whispered, reaching for Shadow’s hand, guiding his palm to the center of his peach chest – finding his heart beat, steady and open. There was only a brief stutter before Shadow’s hand touched him, hesitant to go back for more of what felt so animal , worried about the narrative after… if he’d even like it. 

Shadow watched, breath shallow, eyes wide with possibility.

Sonic returned his eyes to Shadow, let them fall half mast in the way that was honest, smiling softly as he closed the space between them again. Shadow was full of anticipation, every touch and reverberation feeling new, unreal. He’d never thought there was another of him, never knew this intimacy could be for him too. 

Didn’t know he could feel so hungry for such small moments.

When Sonic nuzzled their cheeks, knocked their heads together softly, he let that low, intimate, pleased rumble come up for Shadow to receive. A low vibration from deep in his chest, rolled up Sonic’s ribs and into Shadow’s palm, fluttering warm and resonant, wings reaching for sunlight. 

 It vibrated into his wrist and curled around his bones. Incited something ancient, responsive, instinctual. 

Shadow’s breath hitched. He closed his eyes, fingers tightening slightly over Sonic’s heart. And when Sonic brought his hands up, framed his face gently, and kissed him again, there was no resistance.

Sonic’s lips brushed against his again, featherlight, a hush of purring and breath. The sound deepened under Shadow’s hand when Sonic sighed softly into the kiss, giving in, giving up. It curled up his arm, pressed for his own chest to answer. 

It started like a spark under his ribs, electric. Then lower – warmer. A cautious, broken little growl, scratchier than Sonic’s, rolled in his throat, smoothed into a purr. It was awkward at first, shy and accepting. 

Slow and wanting and real.

And when Sonic finally pulled back, Shadow’s eyes opened like waking from a dream. Dazed. Starved. Blushing.

Sonic brushed a thumb along Shadow’s jaw, smiling gently.

“That,” he whispered, “is purring.”

“It’s pretty, yours,” Shadow answered. “It sounds…”

“Like a dove’s coo,” Sonic filled in. “I’ve been told.” It was too revealing, in all honesty. Sonic wasn’t used to sharing so much, being so open. But maybe it was something in the way Shadow’s hand curled tighter around Sonic’s, claimed gently. Maybe it was how those same fingers, finally emboldened, began to wander along Sonic’s ribs, down towards his thighs. 

It made him feel essential to a story that would’ve unfolded with or without him – Sonic was just a body guard, after all. But if Shadow kept touching him like he was worth discovering, he wasn’t sure he cared what consequences their connection carried.

So maybe it was forgivable, just this once, to sleep with the enemy. To let this one beautiful breach rewrite the ending entirely.

“Shads, be bolder.” Shadow’s hand stalled just along the jut of his hip. Sonic pulled him closer, breath warm against his lips. “I don’t want you to hold back if you want this too.”

“I’ve never held back with you, Sonic. Not once.”

“Prove it.”

XXX 

Shadow knew he’d shared too much, revealed secrets he shouldn’t have. Details meant to die with Gerald, to be buried alongside a legacy of restraint, of sacrifice. Gerald swore that the only way to remain human was to mourn, and ensured everyone he allowed access to life forever would know what loss felt like by abstaining from the treatment himself. 

Gerald had ensured he would be the memory so sad that this floating colony of people remained people, would remember the pain of suffering and illness. 

Shadow understood that now. Grief as anchor. Loss as proof of life.

All of it, sickness, aging, death would eventually find Sonic too. Cruel realities a simple promise of time, paid in exchange for time.

The mortal was curled against Shadow’s chest, all warmth and soft, steady breath. One of his legs draped lazily over Shadow's. A peach arm tucked beneath him like it’d been there a thousand times before. As if this had always been home.

Shadow held him tighter, breathing in ozone, earth, fire. Sonic may have been here before, but it was his first time rolling in the fuzzy afterthoughts of wrinkled sheets, mussed quills, swollen lips. And maybe, perhaps, one of the only times in his drifting existence he would.

The air clung to them, still thick with want, flowing slowly as if remembering itself what they’d shared in this room tonight. Chemicals collided, need shared, bodies affirming what had been stirring between for months. 

He’d told Sonic things no one should know. Compromised Maria. Compromised Ivo. Shadow had broken code, decided he wanted to be in a world where he lived with broken rules and their consequences. He wanted to live different, live more like the blue beauty resting on his chest, even if it doomed him to hating the routine he was forsaken to uphold.

He liked Sonic. A lot. 

He was raw, streaked through space like a meteor, all edges and light and no time to apologize for entering whatever atmosphere he encroached on. Hot, burning, shooting across the sky with hope and wishes.

And Shadow had wishes he wanted to spend on Sonic. More than he should. Because like a meteor, a shooting star, Sonic was temporary. 

Their fur brushed, mingling in the hush between thoughts. Sonic’s quills tickled his jaw where they bent close, and Shadow let his hand drift slowly along Sonic’s back, reading his spine like it was Braille. 

He pressed a kiss to the crown of Sonic’s head and let himself believe, just for now, that he could have this. That wanting was allowed.

Even if time would pull them apart, in more ways than one, eventually.

Nothing was meant to last forever. 

But tonight, they could.

Chapter Text

Two months later, Jet found himself staring at something he hadn’t dared to expect – a real, working compromise. Through half a year of bartering, half-truths, and late-night strategy sessions, he’d moved the right piece, learned just enough secrets, and built just enough leverage for the document in front of him to be true.

The Concord was scrawled in cursive across the top, laughably simple in title. It's the crux, the pact of peace. A plan of protection, peace, neutralized threats. 

So maybe it was Maria’s doing, her ability to convince stubborn immortals that they had to budge, give a little back to the planet that had invested so heavily in their existence in the first place. 

Regardless, they had it. An agreement Earth would honor. An offer the ARK would accept. It was, in every sense of the word, a win.

Jet knocked on Sonic’s door, sharp and fast, the way he always did when adrenaline was still running high.

No answer.

He knocked again. Still nothing.

Jet frowned, the grin faltering at the edges. He didn’t want to think heavily about what that meant, not really. Not the blue blur curled up in someone else's quarters, or what kind of closeness might’ve grown in the seven months since they’d arrived. 

So he sent the hero a text instead. The coordinates, what to wear, the time, the formality of it all. 

Jet exhaled, leaned against the hallway wall, and let himself feel the weight of seven months fall away, peel like old paint, fall like molted feathers. 

They were leaving the ARK.

They were going home.

XXX

Sonic surfaced from sleep like something drifting to shore – warm, heavy, wrapped in something softer than gravity. Shadow’s arm was around his waist, fingers playing in the dip of his hip absently, familiar. His breath came slow against Sonic’s back, as steady as the pulse of engines in the walls. He breathed in the scent of Shadow pressed close against his back.

A vibration on the bedside table.

He reached blindly for his communicator, squinting at the screen that lit the room in pale blue.

Sonic blinked at it, reread it once. Twice. The word home bounced, he let it slip from his lips. “Home.” Reality felt sharper leaving his mouth than it did on his screen, jagged and exciting. He was grinning like they’d just struck gold. 

“He did it,” Sonic whispered to the ceiling, more to himself than to the hybrid behind him. “Jet actually pulled it off.”

Behind him, Shadow stirred, muzzle falling over a blue shoulder as he spoke through the afterthoughts of sleep. “Pulled what off?”

Sonic hesitated. He twisted just enough to look back, eyes catching Shadow’s in the thin, fabricated dawn light. 

“The deal. With Earth. It’s finalized,” he spoke in piecemeal, the way the implications were falling into his mind, sifting down to his heart too slowly.

 “We’re going home,” he said sweetly, relief pricking in his eyes — and Shadow went very still, needing far less time to process something so obvious. 

We didn’t mean them. And sad was a sad sight on Shadow’s face. Sonic felt like it would total his heart if he kept looking, but he couldn’t give up a second of looking at him. Not with an end date, an end time, an after in sight that didn’t have forever attached.

“When?” He asked, dragging out the word because he didn’t actually want to know when.  

“I don’t know,” Sonic replied just as slow, meeting crimson with tepid green. Reality did that, twisted happy in with sad, made two things true at once just so it’d be overwhelming to experience. “We should be at the main entry by noon, though.”

Reality was a bully.

Shadow didn’t say anything. His hand remained on Sonic’s hip, but it stopped moving. Sonic reached down and laced their fingers gently.

“I thought I’d have more time,” Shadow admitted, pulling Sonic in harder, drawing him in tight to his singularity.

Sonic swallowed. His throat felt tight, too tight for anything clever or brave. 

“Sounds like you and time haven’t ever gotten along anyway.”

“No,” Shadow said, leaning into the darkness of the comment. “But I’ve never hated it more than right now.” Sonic turned, slowly, so they were face to face in the dim light. His fingers brushed over Shadow’s jaw, memorizing it. Like a map he wouldn’t get to trace again. 

There was silence, not empty but full. Full of everything they weren’t saying. The kiss they shared was soft.

“Let’s go watch the sunrise,” Sonic whispered, their foreheads still touching.

“It’s programmed to begin in five minutes,” Shadow countered, a realist.

“We’re fast – aren’t we?”

He tugged at Shadow’s hand before he could argue. They threw on whatever was nearest – misbuttoned shirts, mismatched socks – and took off down the corridor. They burst through the doors on Shadow’s clearance, and it felt like they were running red lights, ignoring stop signs. 

It felt young. 

Sonic and Shadow broke into the Farm as soon as the projected sunrise began to spool across the dome. Sherbet orange bled into honey-gold, robin’s egg blues softened the edges of the simulated sky. They broke into a slow jog as the light caught their silhouettes, then walked the rest of the way, breathless as they found space, side by side, on a gentle hill. The sheep looked up lazily, chewing, their wool glowing faintly in the light of a sun that wasn’t real.

“Memories last longer,” Sonic shared, leaning into Shadow’s side, watching the sky pretend.

“Damningly so.”

“This is nothing compared to a real one,” Sonic added, watching the dome curve above them. “Back home, it feels like the sun’s reaching out to touch you. Looks like it’s spilling over the horizon. Paints the dirt gold. Makes plants stand up straighter.”

He turned slightly, hoping Shadow understood he wasn’t bragging – just sharing. Trying to hand over a memory-in-advance. Something to tether them together after the parting.

Shadow nodded once. “I’m happy you’ll get to see it again,” he appreciated, voice tight.

“Maybe… maybe I’ll get to show you one sometime.”

“Who would power the ship?” It was a rare joke, a gift. Sonic laughed, mostly because Shadow had tried.

“My life was predictable, routine. Until you. You really threw a wrench in things,” Shadow shared. Sonic’s grin was immediate, sad and soft. 

“It’s my specialty.”

Shadow looked down at their joined hands. “My whole existence, I’ve had nothing but thoughts. You’re the first one I’ve wanted to act on.” Sonic stilled – for all his bravado, his brazenness, he wasn’t used to being chosen. Not so deliberately, with consideration, like he was something worth wanting longer. 

Until Shadow, Sonic had only felt like something fun to chase, something that’s value dropped once caught. Shadow made him feel like a prize, not just a thrill. 

So he leaned in, rested his forehead against Shadow’s once more.

“Guess I ruined you for the better,” he whispered, smiling into the words, pulling at his chin to kiss him slow, sun-drenched, soft gold wrapping them in a sunrise that felt cold. 

They didn’t say goodbye. That wasn’t what either of them wanted to remember about their time together. 

Shadow watched the light stretch across the false horizon and wished, selfishly, that Maria would let him go too. 

So they laid in the grass, listening to the quiet, to each other, waiting for noon.

XXX 

Shadow could already feel the goodbye tightening in his chest, and the agreement hadn’t even been signed yet. In his chest, he knew he hadn’t said enough. Hadn’t been honest in the ways he needed to be. 

And he was going to lose the chance to, soon. 

He stood beside Sonic in the hush before the ceremony, formalwear wrinkled from restless hands, gaze fixed anywhere but the center dais. They stood behind Maria and Jet like proper background characters. The earthling bounced slightly on his heels, a poor mask for how hard his hands were clenched behind his back.

They hadn’t talked about goodbye. Hadn’t dared to. The chamber lights were too bright for something so heavy. But the ceremony would begin any second. The Concord would be signed. Earth would take back its heroes, and the ARK would keep its ghosts.

A few steps ahead of them, Maria stood poised in midnight-blue. Jet, unreadable in formal wear that still looked like it didn’t belong to him, sporting the look of a man who’d won something unwinnable. Ivo wore a sparkling red jacket with coattails. Everyone else looked boring, forgettable. 

And while Shadow focused on Sonic, Sonic couldn’t help but take in everything at once, like he was realizing how soon he wouldn’t see any of it again. 

Suspended rings of light rotated slowly above the delegation floor, casting soft silver glow across the emissaries gathered in rows. And then Maria stepped forward, announcing the Concord – the thing that was going to keep everyone from killing each other.

Her and Jet took turns sharing the clauses, talking through them with the formality of stone. They both look tight but bright in the eyes. Sonic wondered if they’d managed to become friends during the time here.

She seemed to make everyone around her brighter. 

Jet shared the first one – sovereignty for the ARK so it could be its own state, removed from Earth’s governance. Free to move between quadrants as long as it stayed neutral. 

Clause two covered scientific collaboration. The ARK agreed to share a limited, civilian stream of  tech – nothing dangerous, nothing fancy. Medicine, sustainability, little advancements with big ripples . 

And it sent ripples through the room, because it was obligation no one up here wanted.

Maria allowed the murmurs to dissipate, took a long pause before she inhaled, heavy. The next clause had been her own doing, it'd become the crux of movement, the detail that had moved minds and barrel rolled the room’s opinions into something finally manageable. 

Clause three sounded bitter when it left Maria’s mouth, The Immortal Ambassador Clause . Sonic’s spine went stiff before she even explained it. He could feel it in the way Shadow didn’t move. The way the words felt like a trapdoor swinging open beneath his feet.

One immortal would live, publicly, on Earth for two years to test potential integration. They would observe, report, and act as both witness and participant in Earth's capacity to coexist with post-human life – whatever that meant.

Maria took a pause then, the room waited, silent. Shadow’s breath was also held tight, his shoulders stiff from Sonic’s vantage point. 

Maria’s voice trembled only slightly when she said, “Shadow the Hedgehog has been chosen.”

Sonic’s breath caught on that feeling of wait, what? Field green was wide and on Shadow when he spoke out of turn. “You’re coming with us?”

Before Sonic could get another word in, Jet picked up about defense and military and weapons but Sonic couldn’t hear it. Everything that wasn’t red and black stripes drowned out into the background. 

Stars do fall was all he could think and the news settled into the spaceling’s frame. 

By the time the speech wrapped and Maria and Jet were stepping forward to sign the concord, Sonic had only heard the term climate clean up. He assumed they meant trees, oceans, and breathable air – the kind of stuff no one wanted to admit they needed. 

Air Shadow was going to breath. 

Because Shadow was going to come home with them. 

The chamber was still, at attention, as a metallic tablet was walked forward by a young woman with dark braids – its surface was etched with light-reactive script, shimmering. Maria and Jet pressed their palms to the surface, triggering biometric panels. And then, with a pulse of light, in front of a room of muted applause, the concord was signed. 

Maria spoke again. Her voice was quieter, but carried further. “Clause III takes effect immediately. Shadow will return with Earth’s diplomatic envoy. He will serve as our observer, and our ambassador.” The words were measured, irreversible. 

Shadow was still with shock, his world flipped on its head. He’d been running out of time, just not with who he thought he’d been. He’d keep Sonic… only because he was being given away. Change like this… it was new, too much, so sudden. A delicate, smooth hand found his shoulder, Maria’s. She bent down, eyes level, to address Shadow as the room began to thin, filled with discussion. 

 “Earth needs more than technology. They need a mirror. Shadow… you are that mirror. You’re the one I trust the most.”

“Why alone?”

Maria’s expression softened. “You won’t be alone. Not really. Earth isn’t ready for all of us. They’re barely ready for one. ” Her voice cracked. “I've always wanted you to see it – what life down there could really mean for you.”

“How long have you known it was going to be me?” Shadow pressed, trying to hold back anger. 

“Two months,” she admitted, heavy with truth. Shadow waited for her to share the rest of it, explain in detail why it had to be him. “We… Shadow you may not see it now, but we up here don’t act the way they do down below. They’ll figure out that we’re… we’re something past human now… it could cause panic.”

“They are used to Mobians being special, having powers. You won’t shock them the way we would.” Maria’s voice was calm, but there was emotion at the edges. “You… and you’ve never been. I’ve always wanted you to see it.” 

“Maria,” he tried, voice broken like her logic.

She smiled, even as her eyes glistened. “You never know what you get to keep…”

Her eyes held his, heart to heavy to finish the sentence. Tears in her waterline threatened to spill his over as well, because they were family. And saying goodbye to family was tough.

“That’s not a reason not to hold it,” he finished, diligent, defeated. He’d listened, he’d always been listening. It was how he knew she was capping the conversation there. She pulled him into a hug, a deep hug he’d never forget, whispering, “You're the best brother I could’ve asked for.” 

When she pulled back, she tucked a stray quill in place, more for the familiarity of habit. Shadow’s quills were well combed. “Go experience everything. Report back. And live, Shadow. Really live. ”

“What about the energy issue?”

“We’ll invent something new,” she smiled. “That’s kind of our thing.” She looked up, before excusing herself with a thoughtful wink, “looks like you have some important ambassador duties to attend to.”

Sonic had wanted to run over and hug Shadow as soon as the clause was announced, but he’d held back for decorum and decorum alone. But there was something sad, something dusted in space unspoken, between Shadow and Maria that told him maybe he could wait a little while longer to celebrate. This wasn’t his news, wasn’t his moment. 

When Maria’s eyes finally found him, invited him over, Sonic joined calmly. Looked for an easy way in, something to lighten the heavy mood. 

“So… ambassador, huh?” Sonic played, toeing the floor. “Sounds like a big promotion.”

“Promotion,” Shadow smirked, cosmic dust barely beginning to settle in the ruby of his eyes. He was nervous, unsure, confused. “Sure, if you need to call it something.” 

Sonic tried for a smile, but it tugged crooked. “Thought you might want a bodyguard. My schedule’s pretty open, after this.”

XXX 

Sonic had never second-guessed hope before.

But as they stood in the spaceport hangar, with Earth a blue coin on the horizon and Shadow at his side, quietly unreadable, hesitating, Sonic felt something crack under his ribs.

Shadow had never ventured from the ARK before, had only known routine, maybe didn’t know what to do with himself when he wasn’t an energy source.

The way the hybrid had hugged Maria and Ivo, the way the short fur around his eyes was still wet with goodbyes, it was clear how hard this was on him. And Sonic felt a terrible weight, that maybe he shouldn’t be so happy to have him to himself. Selfish that he reveled in not needing to say goodbye. 

But he wondered if this romance would last, once home. If he and everything he could show Shadow would be enough. But instead of allowing that to surface, he simply asked, “Nervous?” 

“First flight,” Shadow answered. 

Jet’s boots echoed down the ramp before Sonic could reply. “So, the chaos twins made it,” Jet muttered. “Great. I was worried you’d try to honeymoon your way out of the mission.”

“Jet–” Sonic tried, cut off by Jet. 

“We don’t know what he’s going to think of it down there. It’s messy. Bureaucratic. Automated in all the wrong ways. Earth doesn’t have the rigid creativity or perfect resource allocation he’s grown up expecting.”

“I don’t expect heaven on earth,” Shadow reasoned. “I know what I’m walking into.”

“Do you?” Jet challenged. “Do you know what suicide rates look like outside sanctuary zones? What oil wars do to kids born on the wrong soil? Do you know what it means to walk into a place built on exploitation and still try to call it home?”

“Jet, that’s enough,” Sonic snapped.

Jet didn’t back down. “He has to understand this. We don’t get a redo if he snaps halfway through the test run. He’s not just representing the ARK, he is our judgement day. He can’t see the pain our societies have dealt with for millenia and get a knee jerk reaction because it’s too terrible. Or – and tell me if you understood this chaperoned field trip differently – we’re all cooked. ”

“Shadow’s not your time bomb.” Sonic stepped forward, warning. “He’s a person.”

Jet’s gaze flicked between them, then to Earth through the window. “Let’s hope he remembers that when he sees what we’ve done to the place.”

“Flowers,” Shadow spoke up. “Sonic told me there were flowers.” It was soft, small. Like a child who wanted to understand something nice. 

Sonic turned to him, surprised. “Yeah. In spring, they show up like clockwork. Bloom wherever they can – even through cracks in the pavement.”

“I want to see them,” Shadow said. “All of them.”

“Fantastic,” Jet groaned. “Poetry hour.” 

“In spring, we have so many flowers,” Sonic confirmed. “I’ll show you many. And sunrises and sunsets, and dumplings from every corner of the globe. And festivals. And trees – we have so many trees.”

“What’s left of them.”

“What’s left of them is still beautiful, Jet,” Sonic admonished, wondering if the bird wanted Shadow to hate it before he even got there or if maybe this was all just jealousy beaking through. He turned to Shadow, taking his hand. “I’ll show you everything, you’ll fall in love with it.”

“And if I don’t?” Shadow looked at the joined hands, concerned about alternate possibilities only because he didn’t know how much there was to live for – not yet. 

“Then I’ll keep showing you until you do,” Sonic promised. “A lot of people are greedy, because that’s all they know. But we have humanity. And you…” 

Field green eyes flicked to Jet, then back to Shadow. “You’re the judge of it now. It’s not all pretty – but every day is new.”

They shared eyes but nothing more, before Jet threw up his hands, nearly ready to abandon them on the bridge before they even stepped foot onto the ship. “Alright, fine. Feelings unpacked. Can we go before you two elope on the launch pad?”

Shadow gave a hesitant, trusting look to Sonic, smiling as green eyes rolled like get a load of that guy. He turned back, looking at the interior of the ARK, seeing Maria for the last time in what he was sure would feel like a very, very long time. 

She mouthed something to him, but the only words he made out were enjoy yourself. 

When Sonic turned to Shadow, he saw the flicker of emotion in Shadow’s face, he knew that they’d be fine. 

But being fine didn’t mean the world was good.

And Sonic wondered if it had to be, for him to be happy.