Wake Up Sonic

Chapter 6

A very tired blue hedgehog trudged along his teacher as they walked to the library together.
Sonic yawned and he readjusted his backpack staring sleepily ahead with a groan at his aching arm muscles.
He's let himself go just a tiny bit after Eggman's last attack, and so he wasn't as durable as he used to be.
His arms hurt from scrubbing so effing much and his tried to ignore the stinging of the cuts on his hands from his fight with Scourge.
Unfortunately he'd forgotten that rubbing alcohol irritates cuts.
Shadow glanced over his shoulder at the blue hedgehog and shook his head.
"Oh come one. If we don't hurry up and get inside you are going to end up sick."
Sonic gave a huge yawn and just as he might have replied his foot caught onto something on the ground and he fell face forward on the ground groaning; his arms unwilling to pick himself up.
He glanced behind him to see what he'd tripped over and saw it was a familiar pipe.
'Ah we meet again!' He thought acidly.
And he rolled over on his back about to sit up, but when he got on his back he found he forgot exactly what he was doing as he found himself staring up at the black hedgehog.
Uncomfortably he was forced to remember a certain dream he'd had last night and the image sent an uncomfortable from the back of his neck downward.
"What are you doing you idiot?"
"I fell" Sonic said blinking up at him innocently.
Shadow's eye twitched as he looked down at the hedgehog in front of him.
"Well then, get up."
"I was about to when you started asking me questions." Sonic said smirking as he pushed himself up with an abnormal amount of effort.
Shadow sighed and he tapped his foot impatiently, a habit he'd actually gotten from Sonic.
Sonic grinned up at the black hedgehog innocently as the teacher glared back down at him.
"Can we go now? You may not care about your own health, but I certainly do"
"Okay, okay fine! Don't get your knickers in a bunch. Race yuh!"
With that Sonic was off at sonic speed and Shadow frowned and skated off after him.
He was such a child.
Sonic skidded to a halt outside the library and grinned back at his infuriated teacher.
"Ha, ha! I Win!"
"Tck! Only because you cheated." Shadow sneered maliciously.
"Isn't this so sad? The hero of Mobius has to cheat to win a simple little race."
This definitely wiped the smirk of Sonic's face and he yelled at the black hedgehog angrily as his teacher walked into the building smirking.
Still fuming he followed Shadow to their usual meeting place and sat down next to the black hedgehog as he fished his stuff out of his brief case.
As Sonic worked Shadow stuck to reading his various books and Sonic wondered how the guy always finished them so quickly.
"Weren't you reading a different book yesterday?"
"Hmm?" Shadow glanced up. "Yes, I was"
"So, how'd you finish so quickly?"
Shadow shrugged.
"I'm a fast reader I guess"
"Hmm"
There was a pause as Sonic continued to work.
"So, what was that fight with Scourge about yesterday?"
Sonic paused and he felt his face heat up.
He'd almost forgotten about what Scourge said, and now that he was reminded, he felt embarrassed seeing as how he was just thinking about some very pervy thoughts which only underlined Scourge's comment.
"He stole my wallet, and made a very rude comment about me and Tails."
"What was the comment?"
"I really rather not say"
Sonic went back to his work and ignored the stare that Shadow was giving him.
Sonic hated when he did that: he was already crushing on him enough to the point he couldn't even have a peaceful sleep, so having him stare at him so intensely only made it worse.
Although he was looking at his paper he could feel Shadow watching him and he shivered uncomfortably,
'DAMMIT! STUPID TEACHER!'
He mind was weeping in humiliation right now.
And of Course, Shadow was completely oblivious...
For next few weeks Sonic was having a lot more trouble than he was sure he could handle.
For one thing, in all his classes now that the students have been there for a month and a week already the teachers were beginning to make things harder than ever for them.
They'd began to tighten up on things involving work quality, using very strict rules and guidelines and restrictions,
The work load had nearly tripled in each class, and every student took eight classes a day,
Then for Sonic, he had to do petty assignments to help the various teachers all thanks to Scourge and at the same time fit in time for looking out for Eggman.
Surprisingly enough though, Sonic was actually looking forward to his couple of hours of tutoring with Shadow.
He was actually starting to get the hang of this whole chemistry thing, and Shadow, being the stupid, show-off, multitalented jerk that he was would sometimes help with other subjects as well.
Sonic was over his original feelings of hatred.
In fact, Shadow had become less of that annoyingly perfect jerk face teacher, and more of an advisor and almost a friend. Even if Sonic wouldn't let himself get too close to him like that.
He was still dealing with the awkwardness of his feelings.
He hid it well, but lately Sonic was having more and more trouble keeping his mind out of the gutter, and Shadow off his brain.
And the dreams... they'd continued... only they were becoming steadily worse as the days went by.
They were a lot more frequent, and a lot less innocent these days, but despite the dreams, Sonic hadn't felt less sleepy than he ever had before.
Sonic was trying to something about it.
He really was.
But there wasn't really anything he could actually do about it all.
And to be truthful, he wasn't even sure if he didn't want it.
Sonic coughed blushingly where he laid in bed staring at the ceiling and scratched his nose.
When he ignored the feelings of embarrassment of being caught up by a dude, the prospect of that ever happening was...almost... desirable...
In a blur of movement Sonic rolled over and buried his tomato red face in his pillow.
'Why am I thinking that? WHY AM I THINKING THAT!'
He opened his eyes as something soft tickled his chin from under his pillow, he knew what it was but that didn't stop him from looking down, or his eyes misting over as image of him and Shadow came to mind and make his cheeks turn a darker shade of red.
He bit his lip.
He hated this!
He hated feeling so... so... vulnerable...
That's what love was doing to him wasn't it?
It was making him vulnerable...
...Love sucked...
Sonic felt strange as he sat down in first period that day.
It was like everything was fuzzy.
Maybe he needed sleep or something?
Sonic rested his chin on his arms until Shadow walked in.
After roll he found himself in a daze, and unable to focus on the work.
Several times he would rouse himself up from a daydream and realize he'd been staring at his teacher instead of listening to the lecture and he winced.
He shook his head and began to write down the notes, but soon his mind was wandering again...
Shadow looked so happy when he was teaching he thought...
When he was in front of the class explaining there was an unmistakable spark in his eyes, and Sonic realized for maybe the first time, that maybe that's what made him such a successful teacher: he actually enjoyed it.
Teaching made him happy...
And with a pang his cheeks heated up as he wondered...
'I wonder if he could ever look at me like that...'
He turned his attention to outside the window nervously.
He didn't want Shadow to catch him staring...
He sighed inwardly and covered his mouth with his hand with his elbow propped up on the desk.
He'd finally broken down...
As much as it embarrassed him, and as much as it went against his previous feelings, he... liked the guy... and he WANTED him to feel the same about him...
So what could he do?
He planned to just wait a while and try to figure out the black hedgehog's feelings...
That would be easy right?
Shadow flipped through the pages of his monthly planner and frowned as he wrote new events onto his calendar.
Every week day he was working from 11 to 5 and immediately after school he had tutoring with Sonic from 5 to 7.
As he scanned the small calendar, he wondered why he didn't mind the tutoring very much: after all during those two hours he could be doing quite a bit seeing the work load he always had; but not only did he not mind it, he almost enjoyed it.
Shadow usually kept to himself most of the time, so it was good to have someone besides Amy around; Amy was a good friend and everything, but he it got a little boring always being with one person only.
He supposed that the reason was, Sonic was so different;
Most people became offended due to his habit of remaining silent or isolating himself, but Sonic didn't seem to mind his need for a quiet environment sometimes.
And at the same time he wasn't boring.
He was always doing something ridiculous and getting himself in trouble, but Shadow didn't find it all that annoying: it was more amusing than anything else.
He was becoming something like his favorite student besides Tails.
Shadow grunted out of his musings and went back to work he had no time to be pondering such things.
It turned out to be a lot harder trying to break through Shadow's guard than Sonic thought.
For the next week and a half when he'd see his teacher he'd tried to be friendlier.
Like if they happened to see each other in the hallways he would wave or nod or give a simple hello.
In tutoring they would have normal conversations from every subject in the book from food to weather to upcoming events.
And although he felt they were closer friend-wise, they weren't exactly on the level he wanted, and he had no idea how to get there either.
"Hurry up Sonic."
Shadow called over his shoulder as the blue hedgehog was standing over something poking it with a stick.
"Heh, heh! It's a slug"
Shadow's eye twitched and he walked over grabbing Sonic's ear none-to-gently and led him over to the library.
"OW! Don't do that! My ears are sensitive!"
"Then stop acting childish."
"Hmph! Who said I was acting childish! And aren't teachers supposed to like children or something?"
"Hmm, not necessarily"
Sonic went over to the couches where they usually worked and flopped down on the sofa with his arms behind his head, and put his feet up on the table.
"Well I'm beat. Thanks to you and your stupid assignments."
"It's your fault for fighting, and why are you complaining now? Your punishment ended today."
"I'm complaining not since I could have done it then I'm sure you would have given me harder stuff if I did."
Shadow smirked; he probably would have.
"Either way stop complaining and sit down, and get to work so we can leave"
He told Sonic who's gotten up to admire a huge stone statue of the globe.
"Okay, okay I'm coming. Oh and please don't get mad but I sorta don't have the notes from today's class"
Shadow gave him a glare.
"And why not?"
Sonic scratched at his nose.
"I kept getting distracted"
"By what?"
'You~'
"Errm you know stuff, like what was outside the window and that desk was looking extremely interesting today!"
Shadow glared at him again and shook his head exasperatedly.
"Fine then, I'm not going to help you with that today. Isn't there another class you need help on?"
'Well~ There IS sex education~3 , you could teach me all~ about that' said the pervy voice in his head.
Mentally he told that voice to shut up and stay down.
"Err there's always math?"
"Fine, sit down then"
Sonic sat on Shadow's left, and ignored the stupid voice in his head that was suggesting what else he could sit on.
"So what do you need help for in math?"
"Ummm well there was that algebra stuff it was like factoring and expanding poly-what-zits"
Shadow's brow twitched.
"You mean polynomials, stupid hedgehog. Alright. Show me any work you've done on today so I can see where you are."
As Shadow scanned over his papers Sonic plucked the lint off his gloves and then leaned forward, propping his elbow on his knee and flicking about a paper ball on the table with his finger.
Pluck~
Shadow's ear twitched once.
Pluck~
The ear twitched again.
Pluck~
Sonic looked out the corner of his eye and smirked behind his hand as the ear twitched again.
Annoying Shadow was fun.
Pluck~
The ear twitched and this time so did the black hedgehog's eye, and Sonic's grin got wider.
Pluck~
This time Shadow's fist clenched in time with his ear and eyelid.
He was getting riled up now~
He plucked the paper ball one more time and before shadow told him through gritted teeth to "Stop plucking that ball right now, or else you'll find it stuck up some place you don't want it to be".
Sonic grinned up in feigned innocence at his teacher who scowled at him.
Yes; Annoying Shadow was LOTS of fun~
'He's so cute when he's angry~' The mischievous voice thought, and Sonic couldn't help but agree.
He gave Shadow a few minutes to calm down before he went on to their usual short "How are things" conversation.
Shadow gave Sonic a sideways smirk and glanced out the corner of his eye as he prepared to tease Sonic for a bit.
"So~ I've heard that you had a particular amount of fun with Amy the other day"
He said referring to one of Sonic's work periods during lunch.
Sonic felt his cheeks light up and he gaped at the black hedgehog.
On this certain work period Amy had been trying to tease him into telling her who his apparent crush was, as she'd heard from Knuckles and Tails.
At the time he'd been so flustered at her teasing, and angry at Tails and Knuckles, he wasn't even sure what he'd said.
"S-shut up!"
Shadow laughed as he saw Sonic's face.
"Ohh~ So it's true, Huh?"
"Shut UP!" Sonic whined childishly, and somehow seeing Sonic blushing for furiously only encouraged his teasing.
"Ohhh~ Do I sense embarrassment?"
Teasing Sonic was too much fun.
There was something in how Sonic looked with his face flushed, and his ears folded that really appealed to the black hedgehog in a way that was normal for him.
But, he decided he'd had enough revenge on the blue hedgie next to him; just one more ought to do it.
"Of course I can see why you wouldn't want to say; who would like a stupid idiot like you anyway"
Shadow had meant it jokingly; otherwise he wouldn't have said anything.
He hadn't seen how the color had drained from the blue hedgehog hog's face, or how his eyes had widened as he stared at the black hedgehog feeling as though he'd been slapped in the face.
Was that what he really thought about him?
He lowered his eyes to the floor and grabbed his arm.
That really hurt.
Shadow glanced up at Sonic with his eyebrow raised as he saw movement out the corner of his eye, and in a split second he registered the look of pain that was etched on the blue hedgehog's face.
'Oops'
Mentally he was putting a gun to his head as he realized the affect his words had, had on the blue hero.
He winced. 'Not to self; be careful what you say'
He hesitated as he raised an arm, but that look of sadness pushed him to make a move.
Gently he put an arm around the blue hedgehog's neck and pulled him against his side in a soft hug.
"Hey, don't look like that! I was only joking. I'm sorry."
Sonic felt his face flush bright red at the unexpected sign of affection. And for a minute he stayed there, rapped under Shadow's arm, held so closely, then as the world stopped moving again he sat up propping both hands on the sofa and he pushed himself up, still facing Shadow,
Shadow had been looking down at him, so now their faces were centimeters apart as Sonic sat up leaning in so closely, and time froze again.
Bum-bum...
His heart beat was the only thing he could hear at that moment...
Bum-bum...
And he wasn't in control of his body anymore...
Bum-bum...
On it's own accord his face was moving closer...
Bum-bum...
He Stopped breathing...
Bum-bum...
His eyes closed fractionally... And Shadow's widened..
Bum-bum...
Bum-bum...
Bum-bum...
And their lips connected... softly... sweetly... gently... and way to quickly... it ended.
In a split second Sonic's eyes widened and time went super slow as he felt himself pushed away... As he fell back there was only one thing that caught his attention;
The fiercest glare of the deepest disgust and anger he had ever received from another person...
And in that short quarter-second as he felt the wooden armrest of the couch hit his back, several different waves of emotions came over him;
Sadness, rejection, pain...
And In the next quarter of a second he'd moved at the speed of sound as he grabbed all his stuff and was out the library before that second had even passed.
Shadow stood frozen where he stood alone and shakily he sat down again holding his forehead in shock.
'Shit'
Sonic laughed manically to himself as he ran passed the borders of the city, passed the fields of the country and as far as he could, fighting the rush of emotions he raced with.
It WOULD be raining.
He felt the drops of water slap his face as he ran through it, soaking through his fur and getting into his eyes...
But he didn't care about it...
He didn't have the time...
He was too busy running ahead, fighting the emotions of pain and sadness that were threatening to come crashing down on him again.
This is what he always did with his emotions; and now he knew the reason.
He would run away as fast as he could away from them... be cause at that moment... his emotions were killing him...
He came back much later, soaked from head to toe in rainwater, as he walked up the steps to the front door of his house.
He didn't know and he didn't care what time it was.
As he opened the door he was thankful that Tails and Knuckles were in bed...
He didn't think he'd be able to pull up his mask for too long right now...
He dropped his backpack near the door and as quietly as possible he turned on the shower, thankful for the soft spray option.
He turned up the heat until he couldn't stand it anymore as an after shock of the emotions threatened to come after him...
Pain....
He gave a soft sort of laugh to himself.
He was hurting...
But he wouldn't cry...
He wouldn't let himself be so weak...
So he wondered silently why the shower water tasted like salt right now....