He is My Master

26: Consequences

                 *******EXCLAIMER*******
I DO NOT OWN THIS NOVEL IM MERELY TRANSFERRING IT TO WATTPAD CHECK OUT THE ORIGINAL AND GIVE KUDOS TO AUTHOR Chiisai Kitsune ON FF.NET HERE

     https://m.fanfiction.net/s/4256772/26/

The weather the next morning was humid, cloudy and oppressive. It seemed as if the approaching war had already pervaded the atmosphere and poisoned the sky. The two hedgehogs in their confined chamber were equally as moody and had been all morning. Shadow was cramped and aching from his night on the chair while Sonic still showed dark circles underneath his eyes, first the forced sleep from the sedative and then the nightmare and sleeplessness afterward having prevented his body from getting the rest he needed.

The chill and air moisture let their pelts stick to their bodies, adding a great deal to their irritability, as well as the sense of purposelessness while they essentially had nothing to do but wait for Black Doom's dinner.

Sonic was at the moment sitting at the table in the room, pushing Shadow's breakfast on his plate around listlessly while trying to avoid looking at Tails' empty food bowl next to his own.

"Would you stop that?" Shadow asked, scowling from where he had been leaning against the wall and staring out of the window.

"What do you care?" Sonic shot back, not looking up from the food and giving the parsnips instead a particularly vicious stab.

"I care because I have been giving up food for you for five days in a row now. You think that's fun?" the black hedgehog grunted, now openly glaring.

"Fine. Then eat this. I'm not hungry anyway," his supposed slave now shoved the entire plate away from him, the parsnip and other bits promptly falling to the floor. Sonic knew he wasn't being very friendly (or fair) at the moment, but his worry about getting too close and being vulnerable to the black hedgehog made him uneasy around Shadow, he couldn't help it. Those nightmares had freaked him out big time. Pushing Shadow away might be the best option...

"The only thing worse than not eating anything is eating very little. Makes the hunger just ten times stronger," Shadow informed him dryly. "Now clean that mess up for Greytail to take away."

"What am I, your maid?" Sonic gave Shadow a pointed look before standing up and flinging himself onto the bed again, rolling over on the mattress and locking his arms behind his head, eyes closed and legs crossed in the aloof attitude of any non-caring teenager. "Let Jet the Jerk do it, as a servant he's pretty useless anyway. Just orders us slaves about," Sonic grumbled, only internally flinching as he noticed how easily he already included himself with the pets of the royal family.

Shadow rubbed his temples, mentally imagining Chaos Blasting the entire room to calm himself down. He tried to tell himself that Sonic was just acting the way he was because of the weather, their situation and because he was still trying to cope with Tails being gone. Silently, he bent down and picked the blue hedgehog's breakfast up. Dusting his hands off, he straightened again, before forcing himself onto the unfamiliar turf of peace negotiations, a scary place the Ultimate Lifeform hadn't yet previously set foot in.

He crossed his arms and stared at the ceiling, not able to look at Sonic while he tried to find the right words. He just hoped the blue hedgehog would appreciate his effort.

"Err...hey."

"What?" Sonic asked off-handedly, not even opening his eyes.

"You're probably already feeling cooped up again," Shadow managed, voicing his first attempts ever since Maria had died to actually empathize with another living being's feelings.

"Wow. You must be Shadow Holmes," dead-panned Sonic, oblivious to the grinding of teeth of the other. Nevertheless, his black counterpart tried to ignore the jab, focusing on how much Sonic still mattered to him.