The Box - Sonadow Fanfiction

Training

"Silver?" Shadow crossed his arms and scanned the recruit, who shook violently with excitement, he seemed unable to hold still, his ears were stiff, ready to listen to anything his new trainer had to say. He nodded aggressively, "yeah my mum named be after her favourite colour, which is funny because I wasn't always grey, I was actually born white, so when I grew up everyone always made jokes about it, even my sister, she's purple. And mean, she likes to pick on me."
"Uh- okay, what do yo-"
"But she's also a cat and cats are mean, even the little ones that don't talk, it's actually weird because my parents are also cats, so I was like a miracle baby."
Shadow stared at him, "do you-"
"You know they're royalty? Well, not here of course you've probably never heard of them, but where I'm from they're like celebrities!"
He was talking so quickly Shadow didn't know what to do to make him stop, he blinked awkwardly as Silver ranted about his life story.
"But you're like a celebrity too! I've heard all about you, Omega doesn't like to steer off topic very much so I only know that you're like, super cool and can teleport and have rocket shoes! Actually that's not true I got here a while ago and did a lot of research-" he paused to suck in much needed air, "and you saved this world like a million times! And you can use chaos emeralds? Is that true? We don't have those at home we have these other things, I can't use them but my sister can, so she's next in line for the throne, which is OK because I don't think I could handle that responsibility-"
Shadow tried interjecting, it failed, the excitable hedgehog kept going, "I don't even really want to be here, but mum and dad think my gift needs to be used for something other than sneaking food in the middle of the night-"
"What is your gift?" Shadow shouted, swooping his hands up in the air.
"No one told you? I mean I guess that's ok, learning on the spot is super beneficial! I do it all the time, mostly because my teachers growing up gave up so now I don't really have a choice!"
He stopped and smiled at Shadow, who sighed with relief and dropped his shoulder, "you done?"
Silver furrowed curiously, "what do you mean?"
Shadow clasped his hands together and shook his head, this kid was going to be a nightmare to train, "never mind. What is it you can do?"
"Oh! I can pick things up with my mind!" He pointed to his head proudly, "I think it's because my sister dropped me as a baby."
Shadow nodded to himself, "right.. so telekinesis?"
Silver beamed, "what's that?"
An echo of silence danced through the air, and even though the only life within 100 miles was buried deep in the desert sand, Shadow swore he could hear a cricket chirp as he waited for his trainee to realize what he just asked.
"You don't know what- you mean to tell me- what?"
They both just stared questioningly at one another.
"Tell-me-can-jesus? Is that your religion?"
Shadow dropped his shoulders in frustration, "just pick up a rock."
Silver nodded excitedly, looked around, spotted fist-sized rock, ran over to it and picked it up with his hand, glancing back at his trainer with wide eyes waiting for praise.
The brooding hedgehog had his brow raised above his head in disbelief, "WITH YOUR MIND!" He shouted, mustering the will-power not to blip away and demand Rouge make the kid disappear.
"Oh, right!" Solder dropped the rock and smiled at Shadow.
Sure enough the rock was hoisted magically into the air and whipped passed the black fur like a bullet.
"Great, welcome to G.U.N. Bye." Shadow turned around, hoping for a quick getaway.
The grey hedgehog raised his hands in confusion, "wait wait!"
"What?"
"Isn't there more? Like, don't you wanna see me fight and stuff?"
"Fight who?"
Silver shrugged, "I dunno, I mean, there's only two of us here, and the bat lady said it's part of training."
Shadow chuckled proudly, "fight me?"
"Well, yeah!" Silver formed fists and started doing a strange dance Shadow could only describe as unnerving, "I can handle it!"
After a moments contemplating whether or not he should send the kid to the emergency room, Shadow nodded casually and gestured for the young trainee to take stance a short distance away.
"RULES?" Silver yelled.
"DON'T CATER THE EGO. WE BEGIN ON THREE."
Shadow lifted three fingers into the air, putting them down one by one, he was rolling his eyes as he watched the kid continue his bizarre strut in what reeked of soon-to-be shattered confidence.
Once the final finger went down, Shadow was gone. He blipped behind the kid and kicked him hard in the back, sending him flying ten feet away. This didn't seem to bother Silver, who leapt back up and screamed joyfully, "WOW! I GOT KICKED BY SHADOW!"
Before the chanting could finish, Shadow appeared once again by Silvers side and grabbed his leg, pulling it out from under him so that he landed on his face. The kid got up again, sand pouring from his mouth.
"Three hits and you're done." Shadow called, blipping back to the original distance between them. "Stupid kid.." he whispered to himself.
He blipped once more, preparing to end the fight swiftly so he could be on his way home, where a miserable Sonic would be waiting for him. But, something strange happened, when he took shape beside Silver for the final blow, he realized he wasn't moving. It took a moment to notice the turquoise hue glowing around his body, and the absence of the other hedgehog.
"What did you say? Don't cater to the ego?"
Shadow looked up and saw Silver floating gracefully above him. He gently floated down until he was eye level with his mentor.
"Can we call this a win? I can hold you here all day and I'd rather not hit you."
Shadow nodded and was released, he dropped softly onto the sand.
"Huh.." he scanned the kid mathematically, impressed but at a loss, "you're pretty clever."
Silver was playing with another rock, making it spin around in the air, "nah, just not un-clever." He turned and smiled coyly to his trainer.
Shadow grinned approvingly, and for a split second, and he means such a small moment there is no real way to measure it, he blushed.
He vanished the instant it happened, leaving Silver alone in the vast desert plain.

***

Shadow didn't return to Sonic, he didn't go to headquarters to discuss the training and he certainly didn't go see Rouge, who would read right through him and tear him to shreds for his moment of infidelity.
Infidelity? It wasn't that, it wasn't even close to that, it was a completely normal interaction between a teacher and a pupil, it was a positive learning experience where both parties learned something, which ended in a civil and appropriate conversation.
No, if it was normal he wouldn't be hiding on his quiet little island feeling a horrible stinging guilt for letting another person make him feel like.. like what? What was he feeling? Noticed? That's ridiculous, Sonic notices him everyday, he doesn't need that from anyone else, let alone some annoying eighteen year old who he doesn't even know.
He ran loops on the island until there was a racetrack dug into the sand, cursing himself for what he did. But he didn't do anything! Why is he so guilty?
"FUCK!" He shouted, "I MISS BEING EMOTIONLESS!"
Shadow plumped down into the sand and looked at the blue sky that judged him. Sonic would understand right? That it was dumb and silly and meant nothing? He wasn't going to hide it, not from the love of his life.
So, if he was going to tell him why couldn't he get up? It's like the sand had tiny little hands held his fur against the ground.
Of course, he wasn't lucky enough to have a moment to consider, as he turned his head to sigh he nearly jumped out of his skin upon seeing his blue counterpart sitting next to him.
"Hi." Sonic said lovingly, bending down to kiss Shadows cheek.
"How did you know I was here?" Shadow chimed reluctant for an answer, thinking Rouge might have put a tracker on him somewhere.
Sonic pointed to his communicator, "you have your location shared to me, did you forget?"
Shadow sat up, "oh.. right.."
The smaller hedgehog looked curiously at his lover, "are you oka-"
"Someone said something to me today and then smiled at me and I blushed!" Shadow buried his face into his hands.
Sonic paused, "ok? So?"
Red eyes peaked between fingers, "you're not mad?"
"Um.. no? Should I be?"
"I- I dunno I thought- isn't that wrong?"
Sonic sighed with a tender smile, "do you like this person?"
Shadow quickly shook his head.
"Then it doesn't matter." He plopped into the warm sand and closed his eyes, "you weren't there when I woke up."
Black and red fur lay nervously beside him, "yeah well, everyone's trying to keep me away because of.. you know.."
"The aggressive and uncontrollable sex monster that lives inside you?"
"Yeah, that."
Sonic snuggled closer, "well I don't want you to stay away."
"Me neither."
"Then let's tell everyone to fuck off- except Tails, we kinda need him."
Shadow breathed heavily, smelling Sonic's sweet scent, how could he miss someone so much when they were barely apart?
They both lay content, the familiar island breeze cooking them down under summer air, peacefully taking in each others company.
Shadow could stay there forever, he could feel Sonic's presence forever, it was warm. But, then it grew hot, every time he took a breath it kept getting hotter, it was almost burning, getting to a point he couldn't stand it anymore and at that point it was so painful he couldn't make out anything except for Sonic, for Shadow it was like blackness was squeezing something out of him and wouldn't stop until he was empty.
For Sonic, it was something different entirely.