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The last couple of weeks had been a lot.
Not only did Doctor Robotnik launch many small scale attacks, he also coordinated them too close after one another.
Shadow had run himself ragged the first week it happened. By the second week he was carrying a bag of coffee beans at all times.
He could go a long time without sleep and his endurance was greater than anyone, but the combination of interrupted sleep and high speed action took its toll on anyone.
By the third week, Shadow was power napping during meetings and office hours. Rouge had joined him on some of the closer emergencies, occasionally hopping along with chaos control if a bigger fight was expected, but she mostly got held back by the higher ups.
They were preparing her for a longer undercover mission and didn’t want her ‘distracted’.
Half way through the week she called Sonic and explained what had been going on. The blue blur had been surprisingly absent from all the fights so far and he needed to step up, in her opinion.
One very serious conversation later and she was hacking into Shadow’s communicator.
Usually it would have been impossible to sneak into Shadow’s room without waking him, but now it was a piece of cake.
He was laying half on his stomach, one arm underneath the pillow as the other rested in front of his muzzle and sprawled out on top of his blanket.
She silently grabbed the device that lay charging on the nightstand and made her way back to her office, fuming all the way.
G.U.N. was a shit show for anyone, but it was worse for Team Dark. Rouge was under contract to ‘repay society for her crimes’ and if she didn’t do as told she would instantly ride to the top of the international most wanted list.
Omega wasn’t technically a person, even though he had a will. He was G.U.N. property and they legally could do what they wanted with him.
And Shadow…
Shadow didn’t have any papers. He was definitely a person by any definition, except on paper. G.U.N. owned him by refusing him papers and keeping tabs on him and his personal artifacts. Shadow didn’t even have his own bank account, because he has no papers.
And it was allowed because the court had degreed that Shadow needed to be classed as ‘a sentient weapon of mass destruction’.
Shoving her feelings towards her work back down, she instead focussed on the immediate work that needed doing.
She quickly installed a small program that would continuously run a script that would forward any incoming G.U.N. messages and calls to Sonic’s personal phone.
She snuck it back in and hoped that Sonic could relieve some of the stress on her best friend.
---
One week later
---
Shadow was still exhausted. The barrage of attacks continued and the most down time he’d had between them was six hours.
But only once.
Usually the number was closer to four and if he was really unlucky, less than two.
The usually grumpy hedgehog became downright hostile to most people. He’d barely eaten anything but coffee beans in a month, often being called away during meal preparation or half way through eating.
He was glad his commanding officer had allowed him to have a chaos emerald on him 24/7 after the first week of attacks passed without sign of stopping or even slowing down.
So instead he drew power from the chaos energy it held to sustain himself.
He did miss food, just like he missed sleep, but keeping everyone safe was more important.
And the tiredness got so bad it started to hurt sometimes, but he kept pushing.
And one day, almost a month into the relentless ordeal, Sonic showed up.
Shadow had felt relief for a split second, before getting back to it.
There was no back and forth between them like there usually was. Sonic shouted some remarks and teased, but Shadow didn’t react.
He was afraid of his own response. For weeks all he’d shouted were curses, genuine insults and exclamations.
He didn’t want to take out his frustrations on his crush, so he stayed quiet.
And then a couple of days later he fucked it up anyways.
The speedy hero had shown up to every single battle since he first appeared and it was also clearly taking its toll on the blue blur.
And Shadow knew that, while Sonic had amazing endurance, he wasn’t quite as durable as Shadow in many ways. Sleep being one of them.
“Fuck!” Shadow heard from across the battlefield.
Spotting Sonic, he immediately knew what had drawn such an exclamation from him.
A peach arm hung limply at his side, clearly dislocated.
Seeing the bots gain on the injured hedgehog, Shadow charged up multiple chaos spears and launched them.
The bots all exploded instantly, the airblast throwing Sonic to the ground, but didn’t singe him.
Feeling the fatigue from drawing on his chaos energy kick in, he looked around and saw that the last remaining badniks had gathered around him.
Knowing he was going to regret this, he reached into his quills and gripped the emerald tightly, drawing on its dormant power until finally he let it all go.
“Chaos Blast!” He shouted as the energy ripped through him.
When he opened his eyes he found himself lying face down on the grass, Sonic’s face hovering in front of him and mouth moving, but for the life of him, Shadow couldn’t follow what he was saying.
His entire body hurt . The dull ache that had been a constant for weeks had been replaced by sharp shooting pains traveling up and down his limbs and even the thought of moving made him wince.
But Sonic looked upset. His arm was still hanging limply and that wouldn’t do.
Pushing himself up on all fours, he tried to breathe through the pain, but it came out stuttering. Then he carefully folded his legs sideways, trying to even out the pressure on his sore body.
He saw his vision go fuzzy and felt his mind turn to wool.
Taking another couple of deep breaths to get through the head rush, he finally looked up at Sonic.
“Shadow?” Sonic questioned gently.
“Sit.” Shadow ordered sternly.
“Are you okay?” Sonic asked back instead, ignoring the command.
“Sit.” Shadow repeated, anger tinting the words.
Being the stubborn person he was, Sonic ignored him again and said “Not until you tell me if you are okay!”
And something in Shadow snapped.
“Am I okay?! I’ve been fighting Robotnik's robots for a month straight! I haven’t had a full night's rest in chaos knows how long! I can’t remember the last time I ate! There have been exactly two hundred and thirteen attacks in the last month that I needed to respond to! I’ve blown up over two thousand robots in that time!” He was shouting, his vision going all weird again, but he didn’t care.
“And then! A week ago my idiot of a crush showed up and just!” He waves his arms wildly at Sonic, “Doesn’t go away! He keeps coming back even when he’s clearly suffering and then!” He points and glares at Sonic’s arm, “He gets himself injured!”
“So! Am I ‘Okay’?!” Shadow angrily throws his hands up in mock quotations as his voice nearly screeches the word ‘okay’.
“NO, I’M NOT OKAY, YOU FUCKING FUCK!”
But Sonic just stared at him, jaw slack as he stared at the upset man in front of him.
Shadow took a deep breath and then continued semi-calmly.
“So you’re going to sit down and let me put your arm back into its socket and then I’m going to take a long vacation after I smash my fucking communicator.” Shadow said with an air of finality that couldn’t be denied.
So a still stunned Sonic just plopped down onto the ground, back towards Shadow and let him do his thing.
Shadow carefully examined the poor limb, making sure it was safe to maneuver it back into place. He carefully started guiding the peach arm up and out front, readying it for relocation.
As he did so, he started to feel more than slightly weirded out by Sonic’s intense silence and hesitantly called out “Sonic?”
The blue blur jerked upright, as if being woken from deep sleep.
He hummed in response, letting Shadow know he’d heard him, but unsure what to say.
Shadow knew his emotional aptitude wasn’t the best, but something was clearly off.
“Is everything alright?” He asked softly as he continued getting the limb ready.
Hearing the honest question in the others voice, Sonic realised that Shadow really hadn’t noticed his slip up and wasn't just trying to act like nothing happened.
And in that moment he saw his chance.
He felt more confident, being turned away from Shadow, but still close by way of physical contact and the care he was provided.
So he took a deep breath and confessed.
“I have a crush on you too- FUCK!” Sonic shouted in pain as his shoulder was forcefully popped back into its socket.
“Warn a guy next time!” He added as the sharp pain dulled into a deep throb.
But Shadow wasn’t responding. His hands still rested on his shoulder and he was dead still.
Carefully turning around, he faced the wide eyed object of his affections.
“I-”
“What did you just say?” Shadow abruptly cut him off.
Sonic looked him in the eyes.
“I have a crush on you too?” Sonic repeated as he finally felt the embarrassment colour his cheeks.
Not being able to hold eye contact any longer, he averted his gaze to the side.
“You said ‘too’.” Shadow said lowly with a hint of what Sonic could only categorize as disappointment.
Wanting to reassure him, Sonic continued with a light hearted cheerfulness, “Yeah, you kinda yelled it, just now?”
The silence hung between them like a heavy curtain.
Sonic glanced back up at Shadow, only to be met with an unexpected mix of exasperation and relief on the others' features.
“Chaos, Rouge is going to skin me alive for this.” He muttered quietly before turning his piercing red eyes to Sonic.
“I’m sorry for the way I confessed to you, but I don’t regret saying it.” He took a steadying breath and continued, “I won’t deny my feeling towards you, that would be cruel. Especially since you seem to reciprocate them.”
A hint of a smile played on tan lips.
“I’d hoped to… Well, I hadn’t made concrete plans yet, but I’d hoped to ask you on a more traditional date before confessing.” Shadow sincerely said.
“But then again, nothing ever goes as planned when it involves us.” He faintly added.
And Sonic, having just sat there and listened to this incredibly private person confess his feelings and thoughts so openly felt overwhelmed with adoration. There was a warmth in his chest that just seemed to expand more every second and he felt the corners of his mouth turn up into a wide smile.
He wanted to shout and run around in circles and so much more.
But most of all, he wanted to be closer to Shadow, so he did just that.
Wrapping his arms around black furred shoulders, he held the other firmly for a couple seconds.
And just as he was about to pull away, he felt strong arms embrace him too.
They sat there for a while. If it was seconds or minutes, neither could tell, but when they let go, they couldn’t help but shyly look at each other.
And while Sonic felt very reluctant to break the comfortable silence between them, the need for assurance was too great.
“Does this mean were, you know, together?” He asked eagerly.
A look of mild surprise flashed over Shadows face at the question, but it was replaced by a smile that hung between amusement and happiness.
“I would hope so.” Shadow said good naturedly, “After all this trouble it would be asinine of us to walk away now.”
And Sonic couldn’t contain his burst of laughter at Shadows dry humour. Shadow just smirked in response before getting up and offering his hand to help Sonic.
Together they made their way back to Sonic’s home.
(And if Shadow dropped his communicator in a lake on the way back it was completely accidental.)