Chapter Text
Nervously holding the package of balloons in his paws, Shadow looked to the other members of the family for further guidance. “Are you sure it won't explode?” He asked warily, as that was the only type of ‘blow up’ that he was familiar with.
Sonic grimaced a little. “Well…” Tails elbowed him sharply, causing him to yelp. “What! I mean, they kinda can explode. But only just a little bit!”
With much more admiration for the Heeler family for their casual handling of explosives, Shadow held the bag as far away from him as possible. “I am not familiar with bomb disposal yet. Someone with more knowledge should take over.”
“They don't explode like that,” Tom said with a chuckle, stepping forward to take the package from him. He removed one of the sad balloons and held it for him to see. “See this? You blow air into it right here. The only ‘explosion’ that can happen is if you blow too much into it, which will make it pop.”
Pop? Shadow recalled the episode of Bluey where they played this same game. He did remember that at the end, the balloon fell onto grass and turned into pieces. The dog family did refer to it as ‘popping.’ There were no big, fiery explosions that he had seen, so he decided he could trust that Tom was telling the truth.
“Will you… teach me? How to blow up a balloon? Please.”
The man smiled at him warmly. “Sure thing, kiddo. Here.”
He then proceeded to blow air into the balloon, and seeing it slowly take on the form that Shadow was used to made his tail wag enthusiastically. In no time at all, the human held a perfectly spherical ball in his hands, holding it out to Shadow to take. Cautiously, Shadow accepted it into his own grasp and marveled at the feel of it in his paws. It was big enough that he could barely wrap his arms around it if he wanted to, yet it carried no weight to it. It wasn't perfectly firm to the touch, nor was it soft or squishy.
He squeezed it a little tighter to feel the compressed air press back against his palms-
-only to shout in surprise and leap backwards when it fell apart in his hands with an ear-piercing shriek.
“It's okay, you just squeezed it a little too hard,” Tom was quick to reassure him as he stared at the remains of his first balloon, his bottom lip beginning to quiver. “I should've warned you, they're very fragile. You have to be gentle with them. Do you want to blow up the next one?”
“No…” He didn't want to risk destroying another one. Without thinking, he found himself curling and unfurling his fingers, then mentally berated himself for allowing himself the habit. He couldn't always help it when he was feeling like this. When he was feeling like his hands were only capable of destruction.
Sometimes he wanted to tear through his gloves with his claws and rip into his own flesh, just to see if it would stop him from destroying anything else.
A gentle weight ushered him into warm arms. “What if I hold you while you do it and tell you when to stop?” Maddie suggested as she hoisted him into her arms. While he didn't like being held without prompting, he bit his tongue against the protest that nearly came out of his mouth. She wasn't hurting him, he should be grateful. She was being nice. It wasn't her fault that he was broken and didn't like nice things.
He squirmed around until he at least found a comfortable position. “That would be acceptable,” he told her, though he still didn't want to.
The woman took a balloon from Tom and guided Shadow through the motions of blowing air into it. When it surpassed the size of his own head, she finally told him to stop. When he took it into his paws again, he made sure not to squeeze it this time. He didn't want to break it.
“Now what?” He asked as he was set back on the ground, hiding a sigh of relief at being allowed on his own feet again.
“Now we play keepy-uppy!” Tails exclaimed, his twin appendages swishing behind him in excitement. “I've always wanted to play this!”
“Really? You never mentioned it before,” Tom commented with a small frown.
“Well… I didn't think anyone else would want to play. It's childish.” He averted his eyes. “But now that Shadow is part of the family, I can have someone else who doesn't mind those kinds of things.”
“Oh, honey.” Maddie left Shadow to balance the balloon in his paws alone, so she could wrap Tails up in a hug. “None of us would've minded either. You're a child, you're allowed to be childish.”
“You're allowed to be childish when you're an adult, too,” Tom added with a grin. “I mean come on, who's the one who showed you all SpongeBob? Classic. Never gets old.”
“Unlike you,” Sonic teased and was promptly given a look from the man that made Shadow's wrists jolt. He couldn't fathom why the other hedgehog only smiled brightly at the human in response.
“C’mon, guys! Let's play already!” Tails exclaimed enthusiastically, and with warmness encasing the room, the balloon was gently taken from Shadow's paws and bopped into the air.
The game began.
Shadow only observed at first as Tails leapt into the air, using his propelling tails to keep himself afloat as he smacked the balloon into a faster descent. It was no match for Sonic's super speed, though. The blue blur was quick to intercept its journey and knock it back into the air. When it came back down, Tom gently tapped it back up with his elbow.
“You wanna get it next, baby?” Maddie asked him, and he nervously bobbed his head, watching as the balloon slowly came back towards the carpet. With all the gentleness he possessed, he tapped it on its underside with the tips of his fingers, and marveled as it floated back up.
“I did it,” he gasped in awe and delight, his tail happily flicking back and forth behind him. “I did it!”
“Good job, kiddo,” Tom praised him, which made his tail wagging speed up significantly. “Knuckles, want to-?”
Without further prompting, the echidna used the top of his foot to save the balloon before it could touch the floor. “Hoglet, it's heading back to you,” he warned as it drifted back in his direction.
“Got it!” Shadow exclaimed as he bounced it in Maddie's direction. His whole body felt alight with excitement and joy. He doubted he's ever felt this carefree, not unless he was with Maria. Even then, they were so limited on what they were able to do together. But this? This was so…
A strange noise suddenly came out of his mouth. One that he heard from himself so rarely that it took him a moment to recognize it. Laughter. He was having so much fun that he was laughing. He didn't think he could laugh if he wasn't with Maria.
But he could.
What else could he do that he thought was impossible?
“That was so cute!” Maddie gushed over him, sweeping him up in her arms and rubbing her face over his head. It was an incredibly strange ritual that he couldn't quite understand the meaning of, but he was at least pleased to not be harmed by it. “I don't think I've ever heard you giggle like that before!”
“Maddie!” Tails whined, and Shadow gasped when he saw the balloon sitting on the carpet right in front of him. “You distracted him from the game!”
“We have been defeated,” Knuckles reported solemnly, bowing his head. “The might of the balloon was too much for our tribe to handle.”
“Chill, Knux. We can just play again.” To demonstrate, Sonic picked up the balloon and lifted it into the air. When it began to descend, the hedgehog lightly smacked it towards Tails.
The kit bapped it back with one of his tails, and the game continued. The household was filled with laughter as rules were implemented, supposedly to make the game more fun to play. Shadow marveled at the idea of having rules in such a fashion. Yet he could not deny that watching everyone having to balance on one foot as they hit the balloon to each other made him break into further laughter.
One of the rules had them all balancing on one foot. The next had them unable to use their hands, forcing them to become creative with the ways they hit it. The last rule, from Sonic, was that they would earn “points” depending on something called style. It took Shadow some time to figure out what that meant, but eventually he realized it meant making the silliest movements before or while hitting the balloon.
Tails twirling in the air before hitting the balloon with both tails? Fifty points.
Sonic backflipping and hitting the ball with the top of his foot mid-flip? One hundred points.
Shadow doing a handstand and bending his legs to kick the balloon? Seventy points.
Knuckles hitting the balloon five times in succession with his nose?
“Five,” Sonic said with finality.
“What!” Cried Knuckles in outrage. “That was worth a thousand. Why is it you are the one assigning all of the points?”
“That does seem pretty rigged,” Tails agreed, causing Sonic to gasp rather loudly and put a hand on his chest.
“What? I assign these points with careful consideration, thank you.” He struck a pose with his arm high in the air and his legs spread out. The balloon bounced off the top of his outstretched fist. “See, that was worth at least another hundred. You agree with me, don't you Shadow?”
Shadow considered the question while he watched Maddie bounce the balloon off one of her shoulder blades. “Well. Considering that you used your hand when that was established as against the rule, I say you would be disqualified,” he said plainly. “And Tom and Maddie said I'm in charge because I had a bad day, so you have to listen to me.”
“What!” Sonic protested rather loudly.
“Ha!” Knuckles raised his fist in victory just as the balloon came floating down, bouncing off of it.
Shadow frowned at him. “I believe you are disqualified as well.”
It was Knuckles’ turn to gasp. “For a mere accident? You wound me, hoglet.” At Shadow's concerned look, he chuckled. “Another saying, little one. Very well, I humbly accept my disqualification.” He grinned. “That just means I now reside on the other team.”
“Other te-?” Shadow was cut off with a choked noise when strong hands suddenly lifted him in the air, high above Knuckles’ head. “I am not the balloon!”
“On the other team, it is our duty to ensure keepy-uppy cannot continue!”
“Yeah!” Sonic agreed wholeheartedly. “Pass the kid to me!”
At this, Knuckles gave Sonic a scolding look. “I will not throw hoglets around so precariously. You should know better, brother.”
“Oh you're going to play dirty, huh?” Tom rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, though Shadow was unsure of what it accomplished. “Then let's play dirty.” With that, the man let out a battle cry and ran towards Knuckles to take Shadow out of his grasp and into Tom's. “Keepy-uppy will continue!”
“Not so fast!” In a blur, Shadow found himself being held by Sonic, the other hedgehog having put a good amount of distance between him and the others. “Not as fast as me, anyway. Ha!”
Shadow grumbled at all of the manhandling. His gaze went to the balloon, which was forgotten and resting on the floor where it definitely wasn't meant to be. They lost. So why was everyone acting like there was still a battle to be won?
They deviated so far from the directive that his skin itched under his fur. They weren't supposed to go against the rules. Why were they all going against the rules?
“I gotcha!” From above, Tails came swooping down and picked Shadow up by the armpits, though his flight was a little unsteady with the extra weight. “Keepy… Uppy… Will… Continue!” The kit huffed out as he deposited Shadow back onto his two feet.
Relieved, Shadow made a b-line for the balloon to get everyone back on track, but was halted by Knuckles stepping into his path. “You cannot continue without the hoglet! We shall keep him from you!”
“No!” Shadow shouted, ducking under his arms as they came towards him. The echidna whirled around and lurched for him, but Shadow was able to dodge and weave each attempt to impede him.
What he couldn't do, however, was beat Sonic to the balloon with how Knuckles continued to keep him preoccupied. “Can't keep going without the balloon either!” The other hedgehog called out, sticking his tongue out. Shadow didn't know why, but the expression had him scowling.
“Good thing I know your weakness!” Maddie yanked Sonic towards her before he could even think and without missing a beat, ran her fingers against his sides in a quick, fluttery motion. “Tickle attack!”
“N-No! Hahaha! Wait, Maddie!” Sonic devolved into senseless laughter for a moment, though Shadow was completely aware of the why. He grimaced in sympathy, recalling the times Maria would trap him and tickle him until he was teary-eyed. “Mercy, mercy!”
“No mercy!” Tom shouted, surging towards the two of them to join in on the attack.
“Showing mercy is failure,” Shadow recited out loud. In his mind he saw his combat instructors’ stern faces as they drilled the message into his head. “The enemy does not receive mercy. They chose to forsake mercy by being on the opposite side.”
The image dissolved from his mind and he was left with the current faces of horribly concealed horror. He immediately pinned his ears back, not understanding what he did wrong, only that he most certainly did.
“I'm sorry,” he mumbled, looking to the floor.
“Nothing to be sorry for,” Tom told him after a brief moment of strained silence. “But I do think we should have a talk about that some other time.”
Hearing that did not make Shadow feel any better. His skin still felt itchy from everyone ignoring all of the rules, his claws still yearned to sink into his flesh for destroying a balloon, and now there were so many eyes on him, looking at him like a freak of nature. He didn't have to look at them to know.
“Hoglet, would you prefer it if we returned to playing the original game?” Knuckles offered, but Shadow didn't look at him. He didn't want to look at any of them.
“No.” He rubbed his eyes, unsure of when they got wet. “I am… malfunctioning. I will not be a beneficial asset to Keepy-Uppy.”
“Do you want a hug?” Maddie asked gently, but Shadow couldn't hide his immediate cringe at the idea of being held again today. Seeing his reaction, the woman back tracked. “Okay, no hug. That's okay. What do you want?”
“Can you fix me?” Shadow asked timidly, not wanting to be broken anymore. Everyone else functioned so perfectly and came together with fluent ease, yet he was continuously struggling to exist like this. How was it that they were enjoying themselves but he wasn't? He wanted to play this. He liked playing it. But he didn't like all of the changes they made to it. Yet he was the only one.
“There is nothing to fix, hoglet,” Knuckles told him, stepping forward to kneel down in front of him. “You are yourself, which is all that you need to be. If you experience negative emotions, they are a part of you as much as the positive ones. We can help you address them, but that is not the same as ‘fixing’ you.”
“How would you help me then?” Shadow asked, his brow furrowed in confusion and fascination equally.
“First, we need you to help us by telling us what brought you distress,” Knuckles told him calmly.
Shadow didn't like that idea one bit. His palms felt itchy just by thinking about revealing his inner mechanisms to them all. Those were the only things that were just his. What would he do if those were damaged as well? “I…” His gaze swept over the room, taking in the earnest expressions that were watching him, and something in his chest unraveled. “I do everything wrong.”
“No-”
“You don't-”
“That's not-”
“How so?” Knuckles asked, cutting through the protests. Shadow marveled at how they all snapped their mouths shut, allowing Knuckles to take the lead. Was he the one in charge, not Tails? Or were the adults the ones in charge?
Well at least he knew one thing for sure: it wasn't Sonic.
“I didn't like it when we broke the rules,” Shadow explained to him, ears drooping. “But the rest of you had fun. Why am I always… wrong? How do I like the same things you do?”
Knuckles chuckled at that. “Hoglet, there are many things that I enthusiastically enjoy that the rest of the tribe does not. There are many things that they enjoy that I do not. That does not make any of us broken, or wrong. It means that we are different people.”
“Yeah!” Tails chimed in, his tails swishing behind him. “We all have different interests. There's nothing wrong with that.”
The thing in his chest unraveled further, though it still remained as a heavy presence he couldn't yet shake. “But I also do and say things that make you all look at me like…” In his mind he saw all of the humans of the facility that would stare at him like he was a horrific monster. He couldn't even leave Maria's room without feeling the oppressive weight of their gazes following him around.
“Shadow.” Tom carefully stepped around Knuckles and knelt down as well, offering a hand to Shadow. With a single beat of hesitation, Shadow carefully placed his paw onto the awaiting palm. Fingers carefully curled around him, holding him gently. “Sometimes you do or say things that remind us that you've had a really bad start to life. You've been hurt so much and so frequently, and seeing those scars are hard for us to see. That's not your fault, and we don't expect or want you to change who you are. What you see in our faces isn't disgust or discomfort, it's grief.”
“Grief?” Shadow echoed, unfamiliar with the term. The weight of it sat heavy on his tongue, though it was also strangely gentle.
“It's like this big, aching sadness that you feel all the way down to your bones.” Strangely, it was Sonic that answered him. “But it's also missing someone or something so badly, because you know you won't be able to see them, or experience something, or be the same way ever again.”
“Oh.” Shadow looked down at his shoes, his heart thundering in his chest. “Why do you grieve me? I'm here. I'm not gone forever.”
“We grieve the childhood you should have had, but never did.” Maddie's reply was feather-light, like a touch-less hand soothing through his insides. “We love you and it pains us to know how much you've been through.”
“Oh.” He frowned. “Then I will cease discussing my past. No more harm can come to you.”
“That's not what we mean,” Tom breathed out, shoulders slumping. “We want to know everything you want to share with us, Shadow. But if you see us react like that, like we're bothered by something you did or said? It's because we hate knowing how much you've had to go through.”
“That doesn't make any sense,” Shadow told him bluntly, frowning deeper. “Why would you want to know more about me if you hate it and it hurts you?”
Sonic shrugged. “‘Cause we love you, Pipsqueak. Maybe it doesn't make any sense, but why does it need to?”
“Because-” Shadow stopped, realizing he didn't have an answer to that. “Because…” Why did it have to make sense? Why did anything? “I like it when it makes sense.”
“Yeah, I hear you. Sadly there's a lot of things that don't, emotions included. Sorry pal, but there's really nothing we can do about that.”
“I can do anything, I'm the Ultimate Lifeform,” Shadow reminded them all, lifting his chin. “I will make this make sense and I will report back to you when I find the meaning of this.”
Tom chuckled and ruffled the quills atop his head. “Whatever you say, squirt. Do you at least feel better?”
Shadow considered it for a moment, assessing the tightness in his chest. “Yes,” he decided. Because even though the tightness wasn't completely eased, Tom did ask if he was ‘better.’
“Wanna play keepy-uppy again?” Sonic asked and next to him, Tails perked up eagerly. “We'll all listen to the rules this time, pinky swear.” He bent down and scooped up the balloon, holding it out to Shadow invitingly.
Shadow's tail immediately told everyone his decision before he could voice it, the appendage flicking back and forth in ready agreement. Everyone snickered and grinned at his reaction, though no one made any comments about it. They remained silent until he gingerly accepted the balloon.
“Alright!” Sonic pumped a fist in the air. “Let's turn this next round into a dance off!”
“Oh! Oh! I'll get the music!” Tails exclaimed, already scurrying off.
“Will that still be fun for you, baby?” Maddie quietly asked, and Shadow appreciated that she kept her voice down so only he would hear.
He thought about his time with Maria. How she taught him how to dance. Such nonsensical movements that followed the rhythm of whatever sound she decided to play. Yet he always found himself giggling as she taught him different styles, or when she would pick him up and spin them both around.
Would Maria be mad if he danced without her?
“It's acceptable,” he told Maddie, though his chest tightened further in uncertainty. Surely Maria would be thrilled that he met so many people who gave him Fun. She wouldn't be angry with him. She was the one who never raised her voice or her hand. She wouldn't do it now because he danced without her?
Right?