Archive of Our Own ^beta

Shadow had no clue how he ended up in such a dreadful situation: picking apples at an orchard with the blue moron and the infuriating bat.

As if the situation couldn't get any worse, Sonic and Rouge had recently gotten together, making him be their third wheel—it made sense, to Shadow's dismay. They were both infuriatingly cocky and (over)zealous, and Rouge could pick up a considerable amount of speed with her wings—of course, she would never be able to beat Sonic at his best, but she would most certainly rival him in situations where they were on equal footing.

To avoid watching their uncomfortable canoodling and amorous behavior, he attempted to stray from them any chance he could. However, Rouge kept flying up to find him or Sonic would run to him. When he thought he finally managed to escape them, Rouge dropped down from a branch, holding onto it with her legs as she lightly flapped her wings as extra support. “If I didn't know any better, I'd think you’re avoiding us.” She crossed her arms and tilted her head all while still being upside down.

Shadow rolled his eyes and turned around to one again escape from her proximity before Sonic eventually found them. “Are ya jealous or somethin'?” He was too late. Sonic, like the bat, had his arms crossed too.

Scoffing, the hybrid unconsciously mimicked their behavior, crossing his arms to wrap around his torso in an act of self-preservation. “Jealousy? What reason would I have to be jealous?”

The leaves made a rustling sound as Rouge dropped from the branch—she wrapped her arms around the hybrid's shoulders, holding her wrists to lock him in place. “You've been pretty distant ever since Sonic and I told you about us. May we ask why, Hon?” Her hold wasn’t unbreakable, but it was firm—if he wanted to slip free, he would have needed to catch her off guard to pry her arms apart. The only reason he wished to escape her hold was because he didn’t want them to be able to see the blush forming on his muzzle. It was the middle of summer—their fur had thinned, meaning that his blush would be visible now more than ever.

Her arms came apart as Shadow attempted to pull away, causing him to stumble until he was caught by another pair of arms and once again trapped. “Why are ya tryin’ to run, Shads?”

“You’re both insufferable—that’s why!” He twisted and contorted his body in just the right way, slipping away from Sonic before either him or the bat could get a hold on him again. He ran far away before taking inspiration from the bat and climbing one of the trees to hide in it. By doing his damnedest to avoid them in the large, inescapable field, he hadn't had a moment to actually take an apple for himself. Shadow looked around him to find one close to him that he could reach without much effort to avoid making any noises that would alert the others to him. He set his eyes on an apple right above his head, stood up with a hand squeezing a branch to keep his balance as his other hand reached up for the red fruit. Just the slight touch from the tip of his finger allowed the stem to break under the weight of the apple—he caught it, nearly falling with the fruit until he pulled himself back. Sitting between two large branches, he first admired the fruit before rubbing the skin with the side of his glove, wiping off some of the natural wax to reveal a shiny layer.

He quite enjoyed apples—they were somewhat seen as one of the most basic fruits, but he liked simple; he wished everything in his life was as simple. Once he was finished with the apple, leaving only a small amount of the core and the seeds, he dropped the remains below him to allow the fruit to decompose to feed the very tree that birthed it. He ate a few more apples, having nothing better to do with his time when the ground below him was a battlefeild—his opponents being a bloodthirsty bat and a savage hedgehog. Only the foliage kept him hidden, but the small gaps between the leaves shot gleams of sunlight through his thin coat and to his skin. There was just something so much better about the heat from the sun that starkly contrasted to the artificial warmth of an insulated blanket—it felt real; not simply a mirror, reflecting back his own heat.

After a few minutes, or a few hours, of eating the apples one by one, he heard a whisper. “Shadow? I know you’re up there, Hon.” He froze upon hearing the all too familiar sultry voice of the bat. “C'mon, Hon. Do you wanna come down or me come up?”

Already caught, there was no point in keeping his silence. “You can come up.”

She flew up, searching through the branches for a moment before landing on the same branch as him, sitting across from the hybrid with her legs crossed, somehow keeping her balance without the need for a supporting hand on another branch. “Let's talk—girl to girl.”

“Girl to girl?”

“You’re one of the girls in my eyes—anyway, that's beside the point. What's really going on?” He stayed silent, staring at his own hands supporting his weight on the tree. “Girl to girl, remember? You can tell me anything and it won't leave this tree.”

The bark made a strange squeaking noise under the pressure of his clenching fists. “I don’t know.”

She nodded, clearly attempting to seem understanding despite his answer being completely equivocal. “The moment we told you we got together, you shrank back to that closed off hybrid you used to be all those years ago before you loosened up—before we gained your trust.” Her eyes were piercing—they always were. She had a natural eye for details, always searching deeper and broader for something she may not have seen at first glance. “We weren't trying to tease you when we asked if you were jealous.” Shadow rolled his eyes upon hearing the word mentioned once again. “Listen, Shadow, it's okay to be jealous. Plus, there are many reasons why you could be jealous—we're not teasing you by accusing you of liking one of us, but even if that was the case, it's not healthy for you to keep it bottled up.” She leaned her head on her knees, hugging her thighs to her chest while still staring in his direction. “Be honest with me, Hon. We care about you and don't want to make you uncomfortable.”

A strong breeze flew through the foliage, cooling off the two in the tree. “I don’t know—I don't know why I'm jealous. I feel…the same way towards both of you, and you two truly were made for each other.”

“...but?”

“...but I'm scared that things will change for the worse between you and me, me and Sonic, and definitely the dynamic between all three of us together.” He hung his legs off the side, swinging them back and forth while continuing to squeeze his supporting branch.

The bat nodded slowly once again. “Are you worried that we won't make any time for you?”

Shadow sighed, becoming frustrated at his own inability to analyze himself. “I guess that’s part of it.”

“When you say you feel the same for both me and Sonic, what do you mean by that?”

For a brief moment, Shadow wondered where the blue hedgehog even was. Why was it only the bat speaking to him and not the two of them terrorizing him? “I like the two of you for different reasons…but I prefer when I am around the both of you at once.”

“You don’t want to be the third wheel?” He nodded. “Back to the jealousy thing—is there anything that he and I do with each other that you wish we also did with you?”

“You two are the only people I'd ever allow physical contact with…it's turned less into an exception and more to a want. Whenever you two are together now, you are all over each other—kissing, hugging, holding hands, brushing up against each other…” he stopped right before trailing off.

“Do you wish we did those things with you?” He bit his tongue before shamefully nodding. If it weren't for the fear of falling, he would have wrapped his arms around himself and curled into a ball. “Thank you for being honest, Hon. Can I tell you a little secret of mine and Sonic’s?” For the first time during their conversation, he met Rouge's eyes, brimming with anxiety and embarrassment. “Both Sonic and I also wish we could do those things with you.” Shadow’s face scrunched up, believing her words to be nothing but an attempt to console him, baby him, pity him. “No, no, really! We've actually talked about it often, even during the beginning of our relationship—we both like each other, but we also both like you.”

“Like me? The same way you and Sonic like each other?”

She gave a warm smile as she nodded, slightly giggling at his astonished reaction. “We've been wanting you to join our relationship for a while now, but we didn't know if we would ever be able to bring it up since you seemed so uncomfortable.”

“...You want me to join the relationship? And Sonic does too? How does that work?”

“A relationship doesn't have to be just two people—it can be far more diverse than that. We can all be with each other if we really want to be.” She held out her hand to him. He took it, squeezing it as they dropped down from the tree. Sonic was nearby, leaning against a different tree. He wasn't close enough to hear their conversation, much to Shadow's relief—he had a certain disdain for vulnerability and he definitely would have felt uncomfortable if Sonic was listening in on the conversation. Rouge nodded at Sonic and motioned for him to come over. She was still holding his hand, giving it a squeeze as the blue hedgehog strolled over. “Can I kiss you, Hon? Would you be okay with that?” Shadow looked over to Sonic before meeting his eyes with Rouge and nodding. She held his face, pulling his face into her own and pressing her lips into his. Her sugary lip gloss overpowered the flavor of the fruit juice still present on his own lips.

The second she pulled away, Sonic was about to ask the same question, but Shadow didn't allow him, pressing his lips to the cobalt hedgehog's.

When their lips disconnected, Sonic licked his lips, tasting the second hand lip gloss application. “So I'm assumin’ he said yes?” Shadow gave him another peck on the lips before speeding off like he did before, leaving the two to once again chase after him, but he was running for completely different reasons than he was prior. Now, he was running because of pure glee—joy he still wasn't willing to express to the others without a fight.