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Lasers were being shot from all directions, terrorizing everybody in its path. Ice cream stands were exploding, random other things getting decimated. Poor innocent civilians ran around while screaming helplessly. Sonic, Amy, Knuckles, Tails, and Sticks were fending off a massive robot (coincidentally named Huge-bot), as it wreaked havoc everywhere.
Another typical Tuesday.
Sonic sprinted into action. Receiving a powerful boost from Knuckles, he dashed into the only weak point on the robot—a huge glass dome that contained its battery power. As usual, Sonic and his friends had defeated Eggman, once again.
Villagers began to cheer loudly and praise the heroes, the blue hedgehog gladly soaking up the attention.
Amy finished off a crab bot with her hammer, before walking up to the hero. “Don’t you think it’s been getting a little bit boring lately? We only got ambushed like three times this week,” she said with mild confusion.
Knuckles shrugged. “It’s almost as if something super important is about to happen right now, since nothing else cool happened,” he exclaimed, hitting his fist into his other hand.
A few seconds passed by. Tails checked his wrist impatiently as Sticks tapped her foot.
“Well, guess not. Who’s up for Meh Burger?” Sonic cheered, his friends agreeing excitedly. As if on cue, the hero was suddenly thrown into a wall.
“Woah! What was that?!” Tails yelled, whipping around to look at his (currently injured) friend. Sonic shook the dizziness from his head, propping himself up with his arm. He tilted his head upward to see his foe, and was met with the worst possible outcome.
Oh god.
“Shadow?”
A black hedgehog with red stripes looked over Sonic, staring down at him with anger painted across his extremely grumpy face.
“Who’s that?” Amy asked, putting her hands on her hips.
“I don’t know, but I don’t like this guy one bit,” Sticks growled, pulling out her boomerang. She let out a furious war cry, charging toward the stranger and tossing her weapon. Just as she was about to pounce on him, he disappeared into thin air, reappearing just as quickly.
Sticks jumped back on her feet. “I knew it,” she growled, “I knew the alien government would come and get us one day!”
Before she could charge, Sonic grabbed her arm. “Hey, uh, maybe you should let me handle this one?” he stated, though it came out more as a question. Sticks grumbled and crossed her arms as he walked toward the enemy.
“Be careful! He can use his mind control to take you over!” she yelled after him.
“Look, Shadow, I really don’t have time for this right now,” Sonic said, “I kind of have an important thing to attend to.”
“Like I would care about your little get-together with your pathetic friends,” Shadow answered, charging towards the blue hedgehog.
Swiftly, Sonic dodged to the left, swinging for an uppercut but narrowly missing his rival by a hair. Shadow dashed forward, grabbing Sonic by his neck scarf and throwing him down to the ground, where the two continued to brawl.
Already exhausted from the battle earlier, Sonic slipped away from Shadow’s grasp, running away in a flash. His counterpart followed closely, and Sonic tried to talk to him once again.
“Shads, seriously, come on! I thought we were behind this whole random fighting and yelling,” the blue hedgehog tried reasoning, but the other just scoffed dismissively.
“Don’t you ever call me that again,” he growled, engaging in combat with him once again. The civilians screamed, diving for cover behind random objects. Meanwhile Sonic’s friends watched by the sidelines.
“Huh. That guy looks a lot like Sonic, doesn’t he?” Knuckles observed, putting a hand on his chin.
“Maybe he is Sonic, just from the future coming back for revenge on himself!” Sticks screeched.
“That theory doesn’t even make any sense,” Tails spoke up, “it’s not like Sonic doomed the future by not doing something stupid and was then blamed for it.”
“Well besides that, it seems they know each other quite well,” Amy said, suspicious of the two hedgehogs who were currently wrestling with each other at Meh Burger. “I think I’m gonna have a little talk with Mr. The Hedgehog after this blows over.”
—
After a few hours of yelling and fighting and punching, Shadow and Sonic parted ways (albeit not as peaceful as it sounds - Shadow just happened to absolutely destroy Sonic in their brawl). By now, the whole village had been decimated by their battle. Amy had taken Sonic to her house to care for him while he was injured (and to hide away from the mayor for any possible charges).
The pink hedgehog wrapped bandages around his arms and legs carefully. “Your legs will be out of commission for a few days, so try to avoid running as much as you can,” she told him strictly.
“Maybe I should lay off the sports tape a little, it doesn’t really help with stopping injuries anyway,” Sonic muttered to himself. Amy patted the bandages comfortingly when she finished tying them, before sitting back onto her couch to look at the hero straight in the eyes.
The two stared at each other in a tense silence before Sonic sighed loudly. “Alright, what is it you want me to say? It's hard to stall when your expression is that intimidating,” he said, dramatically flopping his arms around in the air.
“No harsh movements while you’re healing! And yes, I do want to talk to you about something very serious,” she said sternly. “Which is why I brought the others to join in!” Her door swung open, the other three walking in and settling on the couch. Sonic grumbled loudly and crossed his arms.
“Okay good sir, we can either play good cop, or bad cop,” Knuckles said darkly, cracking his fingers and slamming his hand onto the coffee table. The others rolled their eyes.
“We’re going to politely ask about that guy we saw in the morning,” Amy emphasized her words while looking at the echidna. “We just wanted to know how you knew who he was.”
“Yeah, I thought we were your only friends,” Knuckles spoke up and promptly got ignored.
“Is he actually an alien sent by the government to take control of all our GMOs?! Or mind control us into mindless zombies forced to destroy everything in this world?!” Sticks screamed suddenly, standing up quickly while harshly slamming her fists into the poor table.
“Again, illogical,” Tails replied to her, earning a harsh glare from the badger.
“No, Shadow’s not any of that! He’s just…” Sonic trailed off, his gaze falling to the floor.
Amy rested her hand onto Sonic’s. “Take your time! If you want, we can just talk about how we feel until you’re ready,” she smiled sweetly, despite the horror on everybody’s faces.
“Uh, actually…”
—
“WHAT?!!?” The four had their mouths gaping open, shocked at what their friend had just said.
“Yeah I know! No need to make such a big deal out of it,” Sonic said, trying to act cool (when in reality, he wanted nothing more than to run away screaming).
“You had an ex-boyfriend and you’ve never told us?!” Amy shrieked, still shook from the news. “Sonic! We’ve been friends for over 30 years and you tell us this now?”
“Wait, what's an ex-boyfriend?”
“It was only like a few years ago!” Sonic exclaimed, ignoring Knuckles’ comment, “and we were young and stupid and stuff. It’s all in the past.”
“Not really in the past anymore because of what happened,” Tails pointed out, Sonic rolling his eyes as an answer to his observation.
“So…” Amy started, staring at Sonic with wide eyes.
“Please don’t say it.”
“What happened between you two?” Sonic groaned and flopped over dramatically, ignoring his injuries (much to the pink hedgehog’s dismay).
“It’s nothing…”
—
3 years ago…
Sonic had just awoken from his sleep. He stretched briefly, hopping out of bed and quickly putting his shoes on. He had promised Shadow that he would hang out with him today.Just as he was about to speed away to the forest edge, his friends stepped in front of his doorway.
“Hey Sonic! Wanna go to Meh Burger for brunch together?” Amy asked with a warm smile.
Ah, shoot, Sonic thought, and put on a wide grin. “Ooh, sorry guys, I had… other plans today. Y’know, need to do some hero duties and stuff,” he improvised, nonchalantly leaning on his door frame. “Hero. Stuff. Gotta go!”
He dashed off quickly, leaving his friends in the dust.
Sonic hated keeping secrets from his gang (especially a secret relationship), but who knows what they’d think of him? Not to mention the townspeople.
-
“Hey, so that’s why you kept ditching us all those times we invited you to hang out?” Tails cut in. “Yes and shh, I’m telling my dramatic story!” Sonic whisper-yelled at the fox. “Anyways…”
-
Sonic had arrived at the location they agreed to meet, with Shadow waiting patiently. “Sorry for the wait, got a bit caught up in something,” he apologized, to which his boyfriend chuckled lightly.
“Seems like you were too slow to arrive on time,” Shadow said, but lacked any venom in his words.
Sonic smirked competitively, leaning in. “Oh really? I bet I’m still faster than you,” he challenged, the dark hedgehog returning the smile.
—
The two weaved between trees and bushes, racing to who knows where. They kept the same pace, stealing glances at each other every so often with a smile. Sonic had been so distracted by Shadow, he barely noticed the ocean edge approaching quickly, almost running straight into the salty waters.
Luckily Shadow managed to catch up and grab him by the arm before he got too far. Sonic turned around, making eye contact with a grin on his face.
“Ha! Told you I’m faster,” he crossed his arms triumphantly. Shadow just huffed lightly at his victory.
“At least I was able to stop you from getting yourself hurt.” Sonic smiled at him appreciatively, plopping down onto the sand with his legs crossed. The dark hedgehog walked up and sat right next to him, the two staring out into the vast water. They leaned into each other, enjoying the silence until Shadow cleared his throat.
“I have something for you,” he said, Sonic’s face lighting up instantly.
“Really? What is it?”
Shadow pulled out an object from some mysterious pocket dimension, before offering it to his boyfriend. Upon closer inspection, Sonic could see it was a square cloth folded into a triangle, dirt brown in color. He delicately took it from Shadow’s hands, looking at the item in silence.
Shadow shifted a little nervously. “I just thought you’d might like it-” He was cut off by Sonic suddenly flinging himself onto him.
“Thank you thank you! I love it Shads!” the blue hero exclaimed, hugging his boyfriend tightly. Shadow put on a small smile, hugging him back with great relief.
The dark hedgehog took the gift from Sonic’s hands, leaning closer to tie it around his neck. Satisfied with his work, Shadow leaned back to admire him. The brown color fit him strangely well. He couldn’t help but to give him a small peck on the cheek.
-
“Wait, that’s how you got that thing? I thought you said you found it in the dumpster behind Meh Burger,” Knuckles interrupted, staring at him accusingly. Sonic looked back at him with a panic stricken expression.
“Uh- yeah! I found the one I’m wearing right now in the trash, I got rid of the one Shadow gave me a loooong time ago. Heh, not like I still wear it everyday like I miss him,” he laughed nervously, stumbling over his words, “I never said any of that. Anyways.”
-
They had been keeping their secret for about a year and a half now. It was the same, Sonic making lame excuses to not hang out with his friends, having wonderful dates with Shadow in the most precarious forests to exist, just enjoying his love life in peace.
Sadly, all good things come to an end.
His friends had confronted him about running off and doing who-knows-what all day. They informed him that Eggman had been attacking the village more recently, probably noticing Sonic’s frequent absences in battle. Sonic had started to tell Shadow he was too busy, needing to help defend the townspeople. A few days turned into weeks, then months. Slowly they began to drift farther apart, becoming more sour towards each other.
-
“And then?” Amy asked, invested in the story.
“Long story short, we kept on arguing to the point we broke up,” Sonic muttered, slapping a hand onto his face. “Since then we just stopped talking to each other. Don’t know why he decided to come and beat me up today, other than for plot convenience.”
“I mean, you were defending the villagers,” Tails spoke up, “he shouldn’t have gotten so angry.”
“Uhh, about that, I kinda maybe sorta didn’t tell Shadow why I kept bailing on him,” the blue hedgehog spoke nervously, Amy snapping her head towards him with a fiery gaze.
“You WHAT?!”
“I don’t know! Kinda just slipped my mind?” he smiled nervously, Amy shaking her head in disappointment. “Communication is key to a good relationship, Sonic! I’d make you go talk it out with him, but clearly you’re not in any state to do so.”
“Still a bit fishy,” Sticks said after being quiet for a long while. “To be safe you should never ever talk to him again. Alien government spies can steal your brain power if you aren’t careful.”
“Maybe he actually is a government alien in an alternate universe,” Knuckles thought aloud with Tails sighing, exasperated. “What? You never know.”
“Ok, I just told you all a massively embarrassing secret of mine, so maybe we should just call it a day,” Sonic offered, his friends humming in agreement.
—
After much negotiation, Amy let Sonic return back to his shack, under the condition he would call for help anytime he needed it right away. Sonic lay on his hammock, staring up at the ceiling. He subconsciously touched the scarf on his neck, muttering quietly before turning over on his side.
“Curse you plot convenience."