Work Text:
Sonic woke up with a sore back and a crick in his neck. Cold metal dug into his spine, unyielding and unfamiliar. He usually found a good tree branch or a patch of grass to sleep in, the stars keeping watch overhead. Instead of leaves rustling in the wind or wildlife scampering about, only the dull clanks and clunks of gears sounded around him. The air stank of oil and industry. Omens of Eggman and his machines.
Pain throbbed in his skull. A memory lanced through like a flash of lightning; an ambush, a fight, and… And he sat bolt upright, crying out,
“Shadow!”
He looked around frantically, heart hammering, awake and alert. The room was harsh and industrial with metal walls and heavy rivets. Shadow, thankfully, stirred nearby on the opposite side of metal bars splitting their prison in half. He was holding his head and shaking it to clear out metaphorical cobwebs. Immensely relieved, Sonic would have scrambled over to him were they not separated.
A soft, electronic whirring made his ears prick and drew his attention upwards. A camera, mounted in a corner, locked onto him. They were being watched.
One thing at a time. Sonic ranked Shadow’s wellbeing at the top of his priority list. He peered through the bars as Shadow stood, and asked, “You okay? Are you hurt?”
“A headache,” Shadow reported. He assessed their surroundings, his gaze sweeping over the cell. He scolded, voice low, “You shouldn’t be so reckless. I could have been that fake me.”
“You really think I can’t tell the difference between my faker and some fake faker?” Sonic grinned and tapped beneath his eye. “That guy’s eyes were totally dead. No life at all. And the body language?” He traced Shadow’s silhouette in the air, exaggerating his curves. “All wrong.”
Shadow huffed, going flush. “Where are we?” he asked, all business and pointedly ignoring Sonic’s flirting.
“Eggman’s latest and greatest attempt at keeping me down.” Sonic spun in a circle with his arms spread out. “I’m familiar with the Egg aesthetic.”
The prison cell was unexpectedly spacious, given the nature of its occupants. Robotnik ought to know better than giving Sonic and Shadow room to build up speed. They were cut off from each other by bars dividing the room, and another set to Sonic’s right revealed an empty hallway. There were no visible doors or obvious weak points.
Sonic’s friends were surely looking for them, as would Team Dark look for their lost teammate. However, Sonic didn’t have the patience to wait for rescue.
“And I’m familiar with how to get out. Don’t you ruffle your pretty quills over it!” Sonic cracked his knuckles and leaned into a crouch, preparing to spindash toward the hallway. If there were no doors, he’d make his own.
“Wait, don’t be reckless,” Shadow scolded in a familiar refrain. “The Doctor is no fool. You can’t assume this place has the same weaknesses as his previous designs.”
Sonic hesitated. Shadow made a good point – Egghead had gotten the upper hand against him before. He remembered the agony of being forcefully transformed into the werehog.
“Point taken,” he conceded.
They split up to examine their respective halves of the cell. Sonic skimmed his fingers along the cool metal, searching for imperfections. He found none. The panels were fitted tightly together and the screws were recessed too deep to loosen by hand. He noted a lack of wear-and-tear from previous occupants. This place was purpose-built, shiny and new, just for them.
“Do you remember what happened to us?” Shadow asked, engrossed in his own search.
“Not really? I was fighting the fake you, real you showed up and clocked fake you in the head, then…” Sonic searched his memory for what came next. “There was a red light. I think we were ambushed? Not sure by who.”
“That’s how I remember it, and I don’t know who blindsided us either.”
“Egghead’s top of my list. Or maybe Metal.” Sonic shrugged. It didn’t matter. Once they escaped, they’d kick some butt and be home in time for a dinner date. “So… my faker has a faker.”
“Who knows what that impostor is doing with my face,” Shadow grumbled, tone sour.
“Oh yeah, totally sucks when some jerk who looks like you runs around beating people up and stealing stuff. Might even end up arrested.” They met by the bars keeping them apart. Sonic reached through and playfully poked Shadow’s cheek. “Can’t imagine how that feels.”
“…The irony of this is not lost on me.”
Sonic laughed. He kissed two fingers before transferring the affectionate gesture to Shadow’s forehead.
“Stop messing around!” Shadow hissed low and urgent, pushing Sonic’s hand back through the bars. “We’re being watched.”
“So? What’s Eggman gonna do, write an exposé? Headline: ‘Blue Blur Pulls a Total Hottie.’ I’ve had worse press.”
Shadow seemed surprised. “You… want people to know about us?”
“Yeah, duh. You are smokin’ hot and I’ve never been shy about my wins.” Sonic wanted to brag about nabbing Shadow when he was such a hot-ticket item. He wouldn’t violate Shadow’s privacy, though. Shadow was a reserved guy, Sonic understood. “Unless you don’t. ‘Cause we can keep things on the down-low if you’re more comfortable with that.”
Besides, there wasn’t much to write about. They were keeping things light and casual. Adding sex to their rivalry hadn’t changed the relationship much. They still bickered, fought, and raced, except now they blew off steam by screwing each other’s brains out. Sure, Sonic had stopped sleeping around, but only because Shadow was such a good fuck that Sonic kept thinking about him when he was with someone else. It was just fun, no big deal.
“This isn’t the time to have this conversation,” Shadow muttered, glancing at the camera. “Let’s escape, then we can talk.”
“You got it, gorgeous.”
Shadow’s brow furrowed. “You should know, my chaos energy is drained. More than it should be from a fairly short fight. I won’t be capable of using my power without passing out. Then I’d be a burden to you.”
“You’re not a burden,” Sonic corrected. “If I have to drag you out of this place by your ankles, I’ll do it.”
“My hero,” Shadow replied dryly. Sonic smiled and fluttered his eyelashes. His charms went ignored and Shadow continued, “We don’t know what threats await us outside this cell. It’s best we find a way out where we’re both still capable of fighting.”
“True enough,” Sonic conceded. He would circle back to Shadow’s sense of self-worth later. Once they weren’t stuck in a cage. “Nothing on my end. You?”
“No. The Doctor has been very thorough.”
“May as well try ol’ reliable.”
Before Shadow had a chance to protest, Sonic rolled into a ball and charged a spindash. With a blurry flash of blue, he launched himself straight at the cell bars.
The impact was catastrophic.
A violent surge of crackling energy tore through Sonic’s body, traveling his nervous system in electrified arcs. Agony burst his every nerve and he screamed, unable to hold his voice back. He was flung back and slammed into the opposite wall, then dropped to the floor. His body twitched and seized, his limbs disobeying his will.
“Sonic!” Shadow’s voice was ragged and panicked, but then he, too, let out a choked cry of pain.
Sonic raised his head, finding Shadow on the ground convulsing despite never having touched the bars. He lurched strangely, like he was being yanked on a string attached to his chest, and the bars sparked again. Sonic’s fried brain put the pieces together and he realized,
“It’s you.”
Slowly, he forced himself into a kneeling position. He shuffled over to Shadow, every part of his body begging him to stop, and reached through the bars to lay a hand on Shadow’s chest. Sonic could feel the energy seeping through the spaces between his fingers like water through a sieve.
“You’re the power source.”
“Yeah,” Shadow panted, chest heaving. “It’s siphoning my chaos energy.”
Sonic’s stomach curdled. “If I try to break out, it hurts us both. That’s just sick . He’s using you like a battery. ” Using Shadow like so many had before. Gerald, Black Doom, GUN, they were all guilty of the same crime. All of them wanted something from Shadow, and none of them ever asked . Sonic was fed up with it – why did so many think they had the right?
Shadow hauled himself up into a sitting position and reached through the bars. He pet Sonic’s quills, patting them down into a neat fall over his back, soothing them both. Sonic’s nerves were still feeling raw, but he’d never reject affection from his reticent rival. They both needed the comfort. Shadow’s hands were very gentle on Sonic’s body, causing him no pain.
“Isn’t that sweet?” a deep, mocking voice disrupted their quiet moment.
A figure strode into view. A canid, though his species was difficult to discern beneath the heavy, gleaming mask obscuring his face. He strolled down the hall with the confidence of a man holding all the cards, hands folded casually behind his back.
Shadow rose immediately, refusing to appear weak in front of an enemy. Sonic mirrored him, presenting a united front.
The stranger stood just beyond the bars and, without warning, slammed a fist against them. As the canid’s own flesh sizzled audibly, Shadow’s chest wrenched like a hook was dug into his ribs and yanked forward. He staggered, staying upright by force of will.
“Stop!” Sonic demanded. He grabbed for Shadow’s hand, wanting to do the only thing he could to offer comfort. Shadow squeezed too tight for Sonic’s raw nerves and it sparked agony up his arm. Sonic held on anyway. He’d rather keep Shadow close than have relief from the pain.
The masked figure stepped back from the bars. Sonic didn’t need to see his face to sense the smugness rolling off him in waves.
“Touch those bars again and I swear I’ll-”
“You’ll what?” the canid rumbled, his voice distorted by the mask. “Throw yourself at me and cry about it when your boyfriend fries? Let’s not pretend you have leverage.”
The stranger wasn’t wrong, infuriatingly. “Who even are you?” Sonic snapped. He didn’t recognize this guy from his rogue’s gallery. Shadow, too, was eyeing him with a calculating stare and no recognition.
“You may address me as Infinite,” the canid introduced grandiosely. “And I’m here to offer you freedom.”
“Sure you are,” Shadow bitterly snarked.
“I am!” Infinite said, cheerfully sarcastic in his defensiveness. He opened up his arms as if displaying the grandness of his magnanimity. “I offer you a choice. One of you will live and walk free so long as the other dies. And you get to choose who.”
Sonic snorted. “Yeah, no. We’re playing along with any sick game you come up with.”
“You will. Because my Phantom Copies and I removed Mobius’s two greatest protectors in a single coordinated strike. How long do you think your little friends down there will last against their might?” Infinite pointed towards the ground, hinting that Mobius was far below them. “You’d best choose quickly, or I’ll be bringing you the fox’s tails or the bat’s wings.”
Shadow snarled, a beastly and dangerous sound. Gold energy crackled around his fists in preparation to throw a chaos spear. The bars sparked in reaction to his flare of power, and Sonic flinched when the feedback rolled through them both.
“Easy,” Sonic advised. “You’ll burn yourself out.”
“He’s threatening my people. Yours too.”
Infinite tsked at them. “Tick-tock, heroes. A full-scale assault on Mobius begins soon. I recommend one of you is there to protect your home, or else it will be razed. Call for me when your decision is made.”
With that, he turned and vanished down the hall, footsteps echoing long after he disappeared. The silence that followed his departure was thick and oppressive. The bars hummed faintly. Something mechanical within the walls clicked and hissed.
Sonic broke first.
“We’re not picking!” Sonic slammed a fist into the floor. Pain shot up his arm to punish his recklessness, and Shadow winced. “We’re not playing his twisted game!”
Shadow didn’t respond right away. His arms were folded tight and he was staring, brow furrowed, at the floor. Sonic waited for him to work through whatever was on his mind, pacing his side of the cage all the while.
“He isn’t wrong,” Shadow said at last. “Any force that took both of us out will sweep through your friends.”
“Hey, don’t knock our friends out of the fight too early. They’re a tough bunch.”
“I’m not disparaging them. I’m including Team Dark in my assessment, and I have complete faith in their abilities.” Shadow’s tone was clinical, not unkind. “It remains a fact that you and I are significantly more capable in a fight. They are in danger, as is all of Mobius.”
“You sound like you’re actually considering Infinite’s crappy choice, Shads. Tell me you’re not.”
Shadow’s silence was chilling. His eyes met Sonic’s, half-lidded. Tired.
Sonic had seen that look before. He’d seen it on Shadow’s face as he fell from the ARK. Watched it fade into the black emptiness of space as Shadow, caught in Mobius’s gravity, burned up in the atmosphere and plummeted to the ground. Saw it reflected in the golden ring Sonic kept to remember him. It remained in his nightmares even after he discovered Shadow had miraculously survived.
“If one of us must die,” Shadow said, calm and final, “it should be me.”
“No, no way.” Sonic shook his head hard. “Nobody is dying.”
“It’s the logical choice.”
Sonic recoiled like he’d taken a punch. “Logical? You think this is logical?” Sonic’s voice rose with his growing disbelief. “This is your life, Shadow! You can’t offer it up like it doesn’t matter.”
“You need to hear me,” Shadow’s gaze was steady, his voice measured. “You are Mobius’s hero. You’re more than a resistance fighter, you’re their hope. I’m a weapon. Weapons can be replaced.”
Shadow was calm. Cool. Resigned. Sonic would have preferred him angry or scared. He talked about dying with the impassivity of a corpse waiting for the ground to close above them.
“You’re not a weapon.” Sonic’s voice was shaking. He felt like someone was pulling at his stitches and undoing him. “And there’s no replacing you. You…” He started counting on his fingers. “You drink your coffee black and get personally offended when I order anything with cold foam. You listen to bubblegum pop music and Scottish pirate metal, of all things. You get weirdly philosophical during pillow talk and it’s kinda cute? Seriously, who quotes Kierkegaard after getting fucked in the ass? You are so, so easy to bait into a race. I’m pretty sure you’re just looking for any excuse to throw down.”
His hands were trembling. His whole body was trembling. Or maybe the world was shaking and Sonic was coming apart with it.
“You burn with so much love you outshine the sun. When you went dark, the whole world almost collapsed into your void. You fight harder and longer than anyone and never get thanked for it. You don’t let a lot of people in, but the ones that make it past your castle walls are protected by a fortress. You’re my favorite rival, and I have a lot I could pick from. You’re irreplaceable.”
Shadow’s eyes shimmered for half a second before he blinked it away. “I… thank you. I didn’t realize you held me in such high regard,” he murmured. “It doesn’t change our situation.”
Unstoppable force, meet immovable object. “Sure, and our situation isn’t hopeless enough to justify anyone dying.”
“Sonic, you cannot act on pure optimism forever. Sometimes there is no good option. Sometimes you can do everything right and still fail. Give me a plan more substantial than a blind hope for it all to work out, and I’ll believe in you. But you don’t have one, or else you would have said so by now.”
Sonic opened his mouth, then shut it with a click when nothing came out. He didn’t have a plan, he rarely planned anything. Busting out by force put both their lives at risk. They couldn’t count on a swift rescue, not with copies of Shadow and other past enemies on the attack. A ticking clock hung over their heads, an impending invasion that would end the lives of their friends and countless more.
“There has to be a way,” he insisted, teeth clenched together as he paced. Desperation gnawed at his sanity. He always made it through. He always found a way. Now, when it mattered more then ever, his thoughts were scattering like leaves on the wind. He clung to the only thought remaining. “That guy is treating our lives like bargaining chips and you’re folding! Aren’t you pissed off? Don’t you care?”
“Of course I care,” Shadow said sharply. “But I cannot choose myself over Mobius. I inflicted my selfish desires on innocent people once. I won’t do it again.”
“Wanting to live isn’t selfish. You don’t have to pay for your past forever. You’re not a walking penance, you’re a person. You’re allowed to just live. You deserve to.”
Shadow looked away. His silence was more devastating than any scream. He didn’t believe it. He didn’t think he deserved to live.
Sonic’s heart shattered so violently he felt the shards puncturing his insides. His view of the world dimmed a little, if it could inflict such pain on someone as spectacular as Shadow.
“Well, that was entertaining. Seems the conversation has come to a close.”
Infinite’s voice slithered into the room. Terror spiked Sonic’s nerves, visceral and feral, the feeling far worse than the crackle of lightning.
“No, we haven’t decided anything.” Sonic hurried to the barrier between himself and Infinite, facing his enemy and keeping his eyes off Shadow. “Stay away from him. Nobody is going to die.”
“Sounds to me that he’s made up his mind.” Infinite stepped to the other side of the divided cell. Shadow’s side.
Shadow didn’t flinch. He stepped forward and nodded. “Yes, I’ll be the one to die.”
“No! No, stop! Nothing’s decided!” Sonic almost punched the cell bars before remembering he wouldn’t be the only one suffering for that. The broken pieces of his heart were thrumming throughout his body, aching terribly.
Infinite tilted his head. “So quick to martyr yourself. So desperate to make your life worth something.” His tone shifted into gleeful cruelty. “What a tragedy you are. A broken weapon, desperate to be used for good instead of ill. Well, congratulations. You found your final use. Dying so the Hero of Mobius may live.”
“Shadow, please,” Sonic’s voice cracked. “I already lived in a world you died to save, and I saw you everywhere I looked. I barely knew you back then. I don’t want to lose you again when I-”
Infinite struck the cage and red lightning danced over the metal. Shadow jerked and fell to his knees. He bit his tongue and blood fell down his muzzle.
“Stop!” Sonic continued to beg, desperate for this horror to end. “Please, stop!”
Infinite struck the bars again. And again. Every pulse rippled through Shadow’s body like razor blades in his blood, goring him from the inside. Until he was twitching on the ground, muscles spasming uselessly.
Shadow’s side of the cage opened, the bars lowering into the floor. Infinite stepped inside. Shadow tried, he tried, to lift himself. His arm trembled as he rose a faint few inches. Then he collapsed, helpless at Infinite’s feet.
“Don’t, please, don’t!”
Infinite ignored Sonic completely. The skin on his hand blistered where he’d touched the cage, and he didn’t seem to notice the pain at all.
“I won’t kill you with one of the Doctor’s machines,” Infinite hissed furiously, gesturing at the cell bars. “No, I want to kill you with my own hands.”
“…Why?” Shadow rasped, barely audible.
Infinite gripped Shadow’s quills and yanked his head up, bending his neck at a cruel angle. “You don’t remember me, do you?” he snarled. “You don’t even remember me. I’m just one more worm you’ve ground into the dirt, one more rung on the ladder towards your own greatness!”
Then he slammed Shadow’s face into the metal floor.
Blood splattered outward. When Infinite pulled his head back up, Shadow’s lip was bleeding and a fang hung onto his gums by a few strings. His nose was crooked and dribbling mucus and blood.
“You’re wrong!” Sonic grasped the thread Infinite revealed. “Shadow doesn’t step on people. He protects them, same as I do! If you just talk to him, he’ll remember. He-”
Another slam, then another. The sound of meat hitting metal overtook the clanging machinery. Shadow’s fingers twitched in a pathetic mockery of resistance and he gurgled on blood. His skin caught on a rivet and a chunk peeled off in a messy slough.
“Who’s weak now?!” Infinite bellowed, his smug composure entirely abandoned. “Who’s weak?! Who’s the weak one now?!”
“Stop, please, please stop!”
This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. Sonic was a hero who always saved the day. He was supposed to save Shadow and escape with him. Fight side-by-side with him and crush whatever army Robotnik and Infinite had mustered up. He was supposed to win, maybe celebrate with a kiss and a warm bed. Then rush off to seek a new adventure and know Shadow would be doing the same. And they’d find each other again – they always did. Shadow was a constant in his life. He couldn’t die. He couldn’t.
Shadow’s orbital bones broke and his eye dropped out of its socket. The next slam crushed it into sludge and it smeared over his muzzle. Sonic heard his skull crack. Fractured bone pierced through his face, tearing open new wounds with each hit. Grey matter oozed out of bleeding slits. Infinite kept going well after Shadow stopped struggling. Until his head was a caved-in ruin of blood, bone, and brain.
Sonic was haunted by Shadow’s face the last time he died. This time, he didn’t have a face left to remember.
Infinite lifted Shadow off the ground and dangled him in the air, his shoes scraping the floor. He shook the limp body once, then laughed breathlessly.
“Ha… Haha… I’m not weak. I’m not.”
He dropped what was left of Shadow a final time and walked out of the cage. It shut behind him pointlessly. Its occupant was still, silent. Shadow had fallen on his side and he stared at Sonic with empty sockets, an unrecognizable massacre of a corpse.
Shadow, the person who had been a little of everything to him; an enemy, a rival, a friend, a lover, an annoyance, a challenge, a fascination, an endless excitement. Was gone. Just… gone.
“You can leave whenever you like,” Infinite told him, perfectly calm. He flicked the metal bars and produced no reaction from them. With Shadow dead, there was no chaos energy to punish an attack. “We will meet again on the battlefield, Sonic the Hedgehog.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Sonic’s voice was so dull it barely registered as a threat. But he felt the promise sinking into his bones.
He understood Shadow’s anger when he’d pointed the Eclipse Cannon at Mobius, intending to destroy everything in Maria’s name. Sonic wanted to burn everything down just to ensure Infinite burned with it. How dare the world keep turning when Shadow wasn’t living there anymore.
“Will you?” Infinite snorted condescendingly, then walked away.
Sonic stared blankly at Shadow’s destroyed face. He’d studied that face so closely over the years, watchful for every tell and micro-expression. People called Shadow cold, but they were completely wrong. Shadow was intensely passionate in everything he felt, and the people who cared about him enough to notice saw it in his face.
Shadow’s gaze softened when they babysat Cream together and she pulled him over to her tea table. His brow furrowed cutely in confusion when Sonic dropped some modern lingo he didn’t know. He shed tears when they visited Maria’s grave on her birthday. His exasperated eyeroll in reaction to Rouge’s teasing was different than the one everyone else received.
There was nothing of that face left. Skin stripped, bone mashed, eyes gone. Infinite annihilated him.
“Shadow?” Sonic asked the corpse. “Don’t leave me. Please.”
He should get up and move. There was something he had to do, something important. He couldn’t remember what. The carved-out space where Shadow used to be was slowly filling with a sick, feverish rage. It built and built and built until Sonic couldn’t hold it in and he screamed. Until his voice gave out, his throat tore, and he had to spit out blood.
Then-
Shadow twitched.
The movement was so subtle Sonic thought his twisted imagination hallucinated it. Giving him a demented kind of hope. Then Shadow twitched again and moaned in pain.
“Shadow?!” Sonic gasped. He reached out through the bars, taking care not to touch them, trying to get to Shadow and feel life coursing through his body.
“Soonnn…” Shadow managed before blood burbled out of his mouth. A few teeth spilled out with it. He hacked violently, other unidentifiable bodily fluids escaping through his lips in a pale green foam.
“Shadow!” Sonic was sobbing by now, tears streaming down his face. “You’re okay, baby, you’re okay. I’m right here. Right here.”
Shadow’s face shifted, the plate beneath moving. Bone shards were slowly pushed out and clattered on the floor like hailstones. The gouges stitched back together, tendons reknit, and muck stirred in his eye sockets. His healing didn’t seem restorative. It looked more like torture. A second birth soaked in blood. Shadow’s back arched as he writhed, like he could squirm away from the agony.
“Don’t move,” Sonic frantically whispered. “Let it happen. Don’t move, you’ll hurt yourself.”
Shadow stilled, finally hearing Sonic’s voice. And, blind and broken, he dragged himself across the floor towards the sound. Towards Sonic. He groped at the air and Sonic grabbed his hand before he could bump into the bars.
“Right here, baby,” he promised. “You’re not alone. You’re holding my hand. I’m right here.”
Shadow’s eyelids reformed and shut, protecting his empty sockets as his eyes grew back. The caved-in portions of his skull bulged outwards, and the skin seemed to bubble as bone settled into place. It was grotesque to watch and a miracle to behold.
“You’re a marvel, Shads.” Sonic choked on a laugh that sounded more like a sob. “Of course you came back. You can’t let anyone else have the last word.”
Shadow stared forward with one swollen, newly healed eye. His breathing was ragged and wet as his lungs purged blood and bile. His white chest fur was matted and dyed with blood. And he was alive.
“Sonic?” Shadow rasped.
“Hi. You’re alive.” His voice dragged through his throat like sandpaper. “I’m so happy you’re alive.”
He sagged forward, exhaustion taking the place of rage. His forehead hit the bars keeping him from holding Shadow like he so desperately wanted to. He jerked backwards when they shocked him, though he held off from screaming this time.
“Damn it, these were just off…” The pain barely registered past the grief so immense it reshaped him into writhing anguish. Shadow winced, even now when his body was still knitting back together.
For an awful moment, Sonic was furious. Not at Infinite, at Shadow. How dare he. How dare you make me watch you die.
Then Shadow squeezed his hand and the fury evaporated. His blind eye rolled in its socket, seeking out Sonic while its twin still grew anew. He tried to speak, lips moving around silent words. New teeth were pushing through his gums, filling his mouth with blood. Through his agony and fear, he sought Sonic.
“It’s okay, you’re healing,” Sonic urged, bringing their joined hands to his lips for a light kiss. “Just keep healing. I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere.”
Shadow’s mangled mouth worked around one word. “S… Sonic,” he slurred, now that enough of his face had regrown to speak. He expelled more blood and gunk, messily coughing until his throat was clear.
“You’re talking,” Sonic whispered reverently. Like Shadow spoke a spell to bring color back to the world. “You’re actually talking. Shadow, you’re alive.”
He brought Shadow’s hand to his chest, pressing it to the frantic drumbeat of his heart like he could transfer the rhythm by proximity. This is what it feels like. Keep beating, stay alive, please. It was beating so hard, it might have wanted to break through his ribs and leap into Shadow’s arms. A laugh bubbled out of him, but it was frayed at the edges, unraveling into a sob halfway through.
Sonic wanted to kiss him. He wanted to kiss Shadow more than anything. He’d tilt his chin up a little, making Shadow scowl with the reminder of their difference in height when he wasn’t wearing his air shoes. He so disliked losing to Sonic in anything, even something as silly as height. Sonic would grin and coo at how adorable he was when grumpy, then kiss his pretty lips.
He was going to kiss Shadow and keep kissing him until their lips hurt in a good kind of way, until they both forgot the bad kind of hurting. Then he’d hold him and kiss him for days on end. But the bars kept them apart and Sonic couldn’t reach him. And the tears in his muzzle were still mending and his jaw was shifting around.
So Sonic didn’t kiss him. Instead, he held Shadow’s face and carefully stroked his muzzle where it wasn’t bleeding. He felt a cheekbone snap into place under his thumb.
“You gotta stop dying on me, man,” Sonic grasped for levity like a drowning man reached for a piece of driftwood. “This is starting to feel like a bad habit.”
“I might have to,” Shadow murmured.
“What are you talking about?” Sonic laughed again despite this being a terrible joke. Shadow couldn’t mean it, because Sonic couldn’t deal with any more, he needed this to stop.
“The bars,” Shadow said as if that explained anything.
Sonic’s thoughts were drowning in gore. He struggled to follow Shadow’s line of thinking, and adjusted his grip on Shadow’s hand. He was careful not to touch the bars again, and realized.
“Huh?” Sonic blinked. “Infinite touched them and he was fine. When-”
He couldn’t say it. Saying it made him remember Infinite dropping Shadow’s crumbled body to the ground. The sound of Shadow’s skull caving in, his face compacting into a mash of meat and blood. Shadow’s eyeless stare burned into Sonic’s retinas, an afterimage he couldn’t blink away.
“When I was dead,” Shadow finished for him. “The cell deactivates when I’m dead.”
Sonic’s heart skipped, then pounded twice as hard. “No. No, no, no, we are not doing that again.”
Shadow was distracted from the conversation by the mess on his muzzle. He did his best to wipe away the eyeball fluid and brain matter, then shook it off his hand, making it splatter on the floor. He must feel disgusting – he cared a lot about his appearance. He’d interrupt their afterglow to start on his nighttime fur and skincare routine, and Sonic always teased him for it. In truth, Sonic liked it. All that product and work made Shadow incredibly pretty, soft, and touchable.
He should tell Shadow that. Shadow deserved to know his effort paid off.
“It might be the only way,” he said when his muzzle was mostly cleansed. He tried wiping down his chest fur and found it too saturated in green, alien blood to return to its pure white.
“Shut up,” Sonic snapped, his voice and something else deep inside him breaking. “Are you out of your mind? You wanna die again after having your face caved in? After I saw your brain fall out of your head?!”
Shadow sat up and briefly glanced at the camera. “Infinite will be back when he realizes I’m alive. We don’t have time to discuss this. I need your help.”
“You’re an asshole,” Sonic growled. “And you’re insane. You asked me to watch you die and now you’re asking me to do it for you?!”
“Yes,” Shadow confirmed bluntly. “I can’t do it myself. Bleeding out isn’t viable, my clotting factor and blood cell regeneration are too effective. Oxygen deprivation is most practical. Brain damage works too, evidently, but there’s no guarantee I’ll die before being rendered unconscious.”
How did he know that? How did he know he couldn’t bleed out? Scenarios rushed through Sonic’s head; a catastrophic battlefield injury he never told Sonic about, ARK scientists testing the limits of Shadow’s healing, Shadow inflicting fatal damage on himself.
“Sonic. Your friends are in danger. Mobius is in danger. We can’t have this discussion again.” Shadow extended both hands through the bars, palms up. Asking for Sonic to take them.
He didn’t have a better plan, as Shadow had demanded of him before. He couldn’t do this. He didn’t know what else to do.
Sonic laid his hands in Shadow’s. Sonic’s were shaking, Shadow’s were steady.
“What if you don’t come back?” Sonic asked, voice small. “You’ve died twice now. What if a third time isn’t the charm?”
“Then you live on.” Shadow said, like it was simple. “You won’t make the same mistakes I did and live in the past. You’ve always lived for the present. You’re better at living than anyone.”
Shadow was talking like this was it, no do-overs this time. He’d already been dragged down into a dark place when Shadow died the first time, and they’d only been tentative allies for a single fight back then. Now, after years of clashing and learning, of battles fought side-by-side, of quiet moments and intense passion behind closed doors, Sonic didn’t know what losing him would do. They were so deeply entwined, what would Sonic would become without him?
He realized, in that moment, he imagined Shadow as an inexorable part of his future. He didn’t want to know what life would be without Shadow. He supposed he couldn’t keep telling himself things were just casual fun between them.
“Sonic,” Shadow persisted. “This will work.”
Shadow guided Sonic into wrapping his hands around a blood-stained throat. He laid a gentle touch to Sonic’s arm. Rubbed his thumb over a white glove, dipped under it to stroke his bare wrist and palm. He was the one about to die, and he was comforting Sonic.
Sonic’s grip was feather-light. He was terrified of applying pressure.
“I don’t want to do this,” Sonic whispered. “Don’t make me.”
Shadow squeezed his wrist, giving silent permission. Sonic clenched his hands until Shadow’s throat stopped moving under his palms. He shut his eyes, incapable of watching this.
Instinctively, Shadow gasped for breath. He fought the suffocation, his body wanting to survive even if his mind consented to die. His gulps and gags faded as his lungs slowly, slowly, slowly gave out. The flexing muscle under Sonic’s fingers went still.
“If you don’t come back, I’m gonna lose my mind,” he murmured, unsure if Shadow could still hear him.
Sonic felt Shadow’s head knock into his arm. He opened his eyes and stared into Shadow’s dull expression. His head had slumped to the side. His gaze was empty. His features were still. Dead. Again. At Sonic’s hand.
Sonic didn’t scream this time. The part of him that could scream was choked out of him like the life was choked out of Shadow. What remained in the aftermath of carnage was a long, lingering silence. He carefully lowered Shadow to the floor and the dull thud of his body crashed into Sonic’s ears, vibrating his skull.
He couldn’t stay here. He had to move. He wouldn’t waste this second chance at escape. Sonic experimentally bumped the cold metal bars and received no punishment.
They were back in action.
He gripped two of the bars and pried them apart, biceps straining, metal shrieking as it bent. He made a gap large enough, putting an end to the cruel separation keeping him from Shadow, and stepped through. He gathered Shadow’s body, cradling him close. This wasn’t the reunion he wanted, not with the heat rapidly leeching out of Shadow’s corpse. He kissed Shadow’s forehead to comfort no one but himself, and started running.
Infinite was sincere in allowing Sonic to leave. His violent crash into the hallway wasn’t announced by a blaring alarm. As Sonic ran the halls of the fortress, he met no resistance. Whatever troops were stationed here were likely on Mobius, waiting to attack. Or in the midst of battle right now.
“Please come back,” he begged Shadow’s corpse for the sake of breaking the sterile silence. “I have to tell you. You need to know someone loves you so bad. Your life is too precious to throw away like this.”
Shadow could be mistaken for sleeping if Sonic didn’t feel the impression of his throat on his palms.
Signs helpfully pointed him in the direction of an aircraft hanger. He followed it and entered a cavernous room mostly empty of the crafts it housed. A few planes remained, and he chose one for its pair of seats in the cockpit.
He set Shadow in the co-pilot’s chair, pulled the safety straps snug over his chest, and claimed the pilot’s seat. His flying skills had rusted over since handing the Tornado over to Tails, and Eggman’s controls were a cluttered mess of overengineering.
“Buckle up, babe,” he muttered. “Air Sonic makes no guarantees you’ll reach your destination safely. Missile strikes courtesy of Egghead are a given. There may be a few barrel rolls thrown in for kicks.”
“I’m not saving you if you crash us into the side of a mountain,” Shadow would say. But if something did go wrong and they had to bail, he’d teleport them both out, then scold Sonic for being reckless. All the while, he’d be worried and make sure Sonic was unharmed. He was sweet and sour like that.
Sonic flipped switches until he got the gist of the dashboard’s functions. He got the engine rumbling and safely took off, leaving the Egg-shaped floating fortress behind them.
“Almost home,” he promised. “You hang in there, okay? You’ll come back. You’re always making a comeback.”
Shadow sagged forward in his safety straps, arms swaying and head bobbing with the movement of the plane. The silence stretched on, seconds crawling by as Sonic searched for any movement besides that caused by the plane. For Shadow’s chest to rise and fall with breath, for any twitch of a finger.
This was taking longer than before. Longer than when Infinite cracked his skull open like a mallet to a melon. It made sense, didn’t it?, for Shadow’s healing to fall behind. He’d been torn apart, then strangled to death. There was a lot to catch up on. Sonic did not murder Shadow.
“You’re gonna be fine,” he said again. “You’re gonna come back and we’ll make out until we forget all of this. Sound like a plan, babe? Just wake up. Please.”
Sonic’s gloves were tacky with congealing blood and he smeared it on the radio built into the dash. The controls were lacking Tails’ simplified, sleek design sensibilities. He still figured it out and managed to punch in the frequency he and Tails used in emergencies.
The line crackled to life and Tails’ voice came through. “-repeat. Enemy drones sighted heading for Station Square. All available units in the area fortify our position there. Wait, I’m getting an enemy signature tapping into our radio frequency.”
“Tails,” Sonic said through the microphone once Tails took a breath. “It’s me.”
“Sonic?!” Tails sounded alarmed, then immensely relieved. “You’re okay! We’ve been dealing with copies of Metal and Shadow and a fleet of badniks. You just disappeared!”
“I was in the big, floating egg. Escaped in a plane. Shadow’s with me,” Sonic said in clipped bursts, swallowing hard between each one. Hearing himself say Shadow’s with me made his chest ache. He ignored it, he needed to be strong for Tails and for everyone. He was good at this, he always had a smile on his face while saving the world. It shouldn’t be this hard.
“Can you jump into the fight? We’re coordinating with GUN. We’re mostly doing okay, but Team Dark is pinned down in Station Square, they could really use Shadow’s help.”
A new voice cut in, cold and sharp as an icicle. Rouge explained, “Shadow has a vitals tracker in one of his rings, connected to Omega’s systems. He’s flatlined twice and he hasn’t come back yet. What happened to him, Blue?”
Sonic looked over to Shadow, who’d only moved as the plane shifted. Still dead. And Sonic was growing increasingly fearful that he might stay that way.
“He’s with me,” he said, soft voice full of implication. He made no promise of support to Team Dark. He didn’t put Shadow on the radio to reassure his team. They were smart enough to realize what that meant.
“VISUAL CONFIRMATION OF SHADOW REQUESTED.” Omega’s voice came through louder. He broadcast through an internal system, boosting the gain. And he tended to yell everything, anyway. “WE WILL BREAK THROUGH ENEMY LINE AND MEET SONIC AT STATION SQUARE TARMAC.”
“You said you were pinned down,” Tails added, confused.
“THE ENEMY WILL NOT PREVENT VISUAL CONTACT WITH SHADOW.”
“We’ll be there, Blue,” Rouge said, a near-undetectable tremor in her voice. Then Team Dark went silent.
The nav system guided him to Station Square. He wasn’t far away and only had a few minutes to put his thoughts together. He touched Shadow’s arm and tried to ignore how cold he was.
“You heard ‘em, Shads. Your friends needs you. Please don’t make me face them alone,” he begged quietly. Shadow didn’t respond.
The plane’s landing gear screeched as it touched down. Shadow’s body was thrown about in its seat as they bounced on the asphalt, before coming to a steady stop. Sonic had no time to prepare an explanation or an excuse to soften the blow. Rouge and Omega were waiting on the tarmac.
Sonic cut the engine. The pair approached, framed by a haze of smoke and heat shimmer. Rouge’s fur was slightly tousled and her bodysuit was torn to reveal shallow cuts. Omega’s plating was scuffed and scorched. They looked like they’d marched through hell to get here.
Sonic’s hand lingered on the flight stick. He swallowed his shame and unbuckled Shadow. When he took him into his arms, his head lolled against Sonic’s shoulder.
He descended the short staircase onto the pavement. The air smelled of smoke, oil, and ozone. Shrapnel and badniks riddled with bullet holes littered the ground. Team Dark had pushed the enemy line back until they were all defeated, taking damage just for a chance to see their teammate.
Sonic was happy Shadow had friends as loyal as them.
Rouge looked steely from the airplane window, armor plating concealing her emotions. Her armor shattered completely when Sonic stepped into view. She looked over the blood on Shadow’s fur, the slack angle of his limbs, the bruising on his neck. Her painted lips parted in shock. She stared, uncomprehending.
“NO VITAL SIGNS DETECTED,” Omega boomed. “UNACCEPTABLE. SONIC THE HEDGEHOG WILL EXPLAIN.”
“He’s dead?” Rouge murmured. She reached out and brushed Shadow’s cheek, so softly his fur barely stirred. She recoiled, snatching her hand back like it hurt her. “He’s cold.”
“He’ll come back,” Sonic hastened to say. “He came back before. You tracked his vitals, you know he came back.”
“That was within minutes.” Rouge pressed a hand to her mouth like she was holding in vomit. Her gaze never broke from Shadow’s face. Dying again stalled his healing and there were wounds remaining. Her eyes traced a particularly nasty one that gnarled Shadow’s top lip and exposed his teeth and gums. “Why hasn’t he come back yet?”
“It’s just taking longer ‘cause he has healing to catch up on. He’ll be fine!” Sonic attempted to smile and project confidence. It felt more like a grimace.
“Because you know so much about how he was made? You don’t know! You don’t know anything!” Rouge was suddenly shrieking, her voice taking on a quality that made the air tremble and Sonic’s ears ache.
“SONIC THE HEDGEHOG HAS FAILED TO PROTECT SHADOW. SONIC WILL CEDE CUSTODY OF SHADOW TO TEAM DARK. WE WILL IMPROVE UPON YOUR INSUFFICIENT PERFORMANCE.” Omega didn’t wait for Sonic to hand Shadow over. His clawed hand scooped Shadow out of Sonic’s arms without mercy.
Sonic’s arms remained bent into a shape meant to hold Shadow. He looked down, sluggishly noticing they were empty, and dropped them to his sides. Omega took Shadow away like Sonic had no right to have him. And maybe he didn’t. Maybe he lost the right when he’d killed him.
He’d performed insufficiently. He hadn’t done nearly enough to protect Shadow. He hadn’t done anything to protect him.
Shadow looked so small cradled in the crook of Omega’s arm. Rouge floated up to Omega’s shoulder, settling there so she could watch vigilantly over her friend.
“I’ll let you know if he wakes up,” Rouge said flatly. “And you’ll know if he doesn’t.”
There was still a war on. Without Shadow, their resistance was severely hampered. Sonic had to join the fight or he’d lose more than Shadow. He carved a jagged path through badniks and Phantom Copies with brutal efficiency, a storm of speed and fury. He tore apart Shadow’s face over and over, printed on soulless duplicates. How dare they mimic his glare, his voice, his ferocity. How dare they insult his memory when the real Shadow-
No, Shadow wasn’t dead. He’d come back. Sonic did not murder him.
He overlaid Infinite’s masked face on every enemy he destroyed, until the jackal himself appeared. He burned with the need to fulfill his oath and kill the man for what he’d done. Whether Sonic would have gone through with it went unanswered. At the end of the fight, Infinite was consumed by the Phantom Ruby he wielded and Sonic was left unsatisfied.
Mobius stood battered but unbroken. The Death Egg collapsed into flaming chunks raining down on the plains below, and Sonic stood beneath the inferno, feeling nothing. No battle-high. No pride. No satisfaction.
He smiled and made a speech to the press and unity and strength and didn’t mean a word of it. Victory came at too high a cost. If not Shadow’s life, because he was not dead, then at the cost of his self-worth. Three times Shadow died for Mobius, and Mobius cheered.
Sonic was shaking hands and kissing babies when the call came. Rouge’s voice, telling him, “Shadow woke up.” And the numbness shattered like glass, giving way to fear and hope.
He ran for the resistance base, to the hospital wing where Shadow slumbered. After a week of waiting and fighting and hoping, he came back.
Sonic burst into the base like a lightning strike, a blue blur weaving past soldiers and medics, ignoring everyone who called for his attention. The halls were too narrow, there were too many corners slowing him down. He skidded to a halt outside the double doors of the medical wing, gripping the frame to steady himself. He braced for what he might see, what Shadow might say, and pushed inside.
Either Shadow was important enough to earn a private room, or the staff wanted to keep the corpse they were attending to out of sight. Sonic found him sitting up in bed, being fussed over by a frazzled nurse. The corpse waking up had likely been quite a surprise. Rouge sat at his side, slumped in a chair and looking as tired as Sonic had ever seen her. All the care she took with her appearance was absent. Omega stood sentinel over him, an imposing figure to ensure the highest level of care.
Omega’s massive frame straightened with the hiss of servos when Sonic entered. “YOU MAY APPROACH THE PATIENT. YOU WILL NOT DESTABILIZE HIS CONDITION.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Sonic said, breathless and sincere.
Shadow looked fragile in a way Sonic wasn’t prepared for. His eyes were sunken into his skull and his skin was mottled enough it showed through his dark fur, which was thinning in places. He’d been decaying while his healing fought against his injuries and natural rot. Sonic was grateful he hadn’t been here to see it. He didn’t need more fuel for his nightmares.
Rouge and Omega did see it. They’d been watching him rot and kept hoping he’d still come back, threading their sanity together on that thin hope.
“Hiya, Shads,” Sonic greeted. Shadow frowned at him, catching on immediately to his fake countenance. He’d been at the forefront of the recovery efforts following the battle, standing as a symbol of hope while his knees trembled. He was tired. Bone-deep tired.
Shadow looked Sonic up and down, then addressed his teammates. “I want to speak with Sonic alone.”
Rouge arched a brow. “You sure, hun?” Where she would have normally teased them, she was instead straightforward in a way counter to her normal self. Watching her dear friend decay in a hospital bed for a week did that to a person.
Shadow nodded. Rouge sighed and stood. Omega stomped after her and warned, as they passed by Sonic, “SHADOW WILL BE IN THE SAME CONDITION AS WE LEFT HIM UPON OUR RETURN.”
“You got it, big guy.” Sonic apparently had some work to do to earn back Team Dark’s trust. He didn’t blame them. He’d never disparage them for wanting to protect Shadow.
The door shut behind them with a hiss of pressurized air, leaving them alone. The room was quiet. The space between Sonic and Shadow felt wider without anyone else present.
“You didn’t tell them what I did?” Sonic asked. He was fairly sure he’d be bombarded with the full force of Omega’s arsenal if Shadow had.
His suspicion was confirmed when Shadow said, “No, I didn’t.”
Sonic approached uneasily. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know where they stood with each other anymore. He wanted to hold Shadow’s hand, kiss him like they were real boyfriends reuniting after a long separation. But they weren’t, and their relationship couldn’t remain the same after what they’d been through.
Shadow had the same thing on his mind, because he said, “Sonic, I think we should terminate our relationship.”
“… What?” Sonic blinked at him, the unexpected proclamation seeping into his brain slowly. The words rattled around until they sorted themselves out into a meaningful statement. “Is this… because I…?”
“Because you killed me, yes.” Sonic hated how easily Shadow said it. “You told me how highly you valued me, and then I asked you to take my life. That was unforgivably cruel of me. I understand if you no longer want to associate with me.”
Sonic laughed. Short, high-pitched, and unhinged. He slapped both hands over his face and shook with manic humor. Through the gaps in his fingers, he saw Shadow watching him with a furrowed brown and a tilt to his head that made him look frustratingly cute.
“You make me so mad sometimes,” he said, swiping at a tear on his cheek. “You arrogant jerk, deciding for me how I’m supposed to feel. Fuck off.”
“I… don’t understand.”
Sonic was terrified, in full honesty. He’d watched Shadow die twice, three times in total, and now he was threatening to walk away from everything they were. Rivals, friends, lovers, and whatever else they might become. Leave Sonic alone with his ghost. When all Sonic wanted to do was hold Shadow close. For a few days, maybe. Until he memorized Shadow’s heartbeat and had the feeling of his warm skin impressed into his chest.
So he laughed. Because that’s what he did when he was scared.
Shadow had closed Sonic’s fingers around his throat, fully expecting to die, and if he survived believed their relationship wouldn’t survive with him. He was alive and still slipping away. Sonic wanted something more substantial with Shadow, something with the kinds of labels he usually ran away from. And to have that, Shadow needed to believe in them too.
Sonic cupped Shadow’s face and saw a flash of hollow eyes and splintered bone for a moment. He blinked it away and stroked a thumb over his healed lips. Shadow tilted his head into the touch and shut his eyes, content. The faker that he was, he still sought out Sonic’s touch after trying to break up with him.
“It’s not unforgivable ‘cause I’ve already forgiven you.” What he didn’t say was that he hadn’t forgiven himself. Sonic was a faker, too, after all. “I hate that I did it, but I don’t blame you for it. Just, in the future, keep in mind that I love you too much to do it again.”
Shadow opened his eyes, wide and unguarded. His jaw dropped a little in disbelief. Sonic rubbed his lower lip with a playful thumb while he processed Sonic’s confession.
“You… love me?” Shadow’s eyes flared bright red, his chaos energy responding to the surge of emotion.
“I do.” Sonic kissed Shadow’s forehead, lingering there for a long beat, before pulling back to meet his eyes again. “I begged your corpse to come back to life so I could tell you. I’m sorry if this is a lot, but I watched you die three times now. I don’t want to risk another death without you knowing you’re loved. So you know someone will be missing you if you go.”
Shadow trembled and Sonic pulled him close to hold him together. He was so warm. So alive.
“I don’t know how to be loved like that,” Shadow confessed quietly, voice raw and thickened by unshed tears. His breathing hitched, the sound of it small and vulnerable, a soft hiccup he tried to smother. Sonic found it heartbreakingly cute.
“That’s okay,” Sonic whispered, not wanting to break the intimacy between them. “We don’t have to rush things. You don’t need to say it back. Let me love you until it makes sense. Don’t shut the door on us because of some idea you have of me in your head.”
Sonic leaned back and tapped his chin, inviting him gently into a kiss, and Shadow accepted. Their lips met with aching care, slow and searching. Shadow took what Sonic offered, Sonic matched his rhythm with careful patience. They parted, and Sonic lightly pecked the corner of his mouth.
“If you need time and space, then I’ll wait for you. And don’t take that offer lightly,” he added with a sly grin. “The fastest thing alive doesn’t stand still for just anyone.”
Shadow rolled his eyes, a smile hinting on his mouth. “It’s not cute when you refer to yourself in the third person.”
“I beg to differ.”
Shadow kissed him to shut him up. Sonic giggled into the kiss.
“I don’t need space. I like kissing you too much to give it up,” he teased back, some of his moxie reviving. “I do need time. I don’t know how to feel worthy of this.”
Shadow believed the most worthwhile he could do was die. And he wanted to do it again, sacrifice himself for a noble cause and find peace. It frightened Sonic, how carelessly he treated his life. Sonic didn’t know if he was the right person to help Shadow. He’d held Shadow’s life in his hands and he’d mistreated it. He had his own penance to pay for that. Still, he was going to try. He wouldn’t run from this and leave Shadow behind.
“Then I’ll love you,” Sonic promised, steady and sure. “Relentlessly, tirelessly. Until you love yourself as much as I do. You never let me stay ahead of you for too long.”