Chapter Text
No matter how many times Jet saw his bride to be, his Wave, he would fall in love with her every single time. Today was no exception.
The late afternoon sun gave a gentle glow to Wave as she walked down the processional aisle, bouquet of sweat peas in steady hands, not betraying the nervous excitement of the bride.
A light breeze softly ruffled the long layers of her pristine white wedding dress, the sweetheart neckline and fitted corset a sweeping elegance. Catching up her long veil before it settled again over her purple fuchsia feathers.
Jet’s heart pounded in his chest, lovestruck all over again when Wave met his gaze, the featherbrained sensation of untenable joy mirrored in her look. Rows of guests turned to watch the bride’s processional as the music swelled, happy tears and sweet smiles gracing the faces in the crowd.
Beside Jet, his blue hedgehog of a groomsmen shifted where he stood, fidgeting with his cuffs.
The hawk clenched his beak, would he really need to snap at Sonic to stay still during one of the most important parts of his wedding ceremony?
Halfway down the aisle and Wave paused, just the briefest hesitation, as she caught Sonic’s uneasy shuffling beside her groom.
The swallow’s brows pinched, a touch of concern, and a silent conversation passing between her and Jet.
Flicking a look at his groomsman, the hawk readied to elbow him into stillness. But hesitated when he noticed the cautioning glare in the hedgehog’s gaze that wasn't directed at him or Wave. Following the look back out to the crowd, Jet found what had Sonic so on edge right in the front row.
The guest, sat sternly on Jet’s side of the ceremony, watched the processional with restrained contempt.
And as Wave approached the low dais, handing off her bouquet to her maid of honor and nodding the smallest ‘thank you’ to Sonic, the ill-at-ease wedding guest shifted in his seat.
As if readying to stand and object.
⁺˚⋆｡° ✩💍✩ °｡⋆˚⁺
The summer sun shone down on the idyllic seaside neighborhood as Shadow knocked on the apartment’s front door.
It’s just a wedding date.
Nothing you can’t handle.
The dark hedgehog pulled the sleeve of his suit, checking his watch again, and bit back a curse. At this rate, they’d be late to the ferry and then even later to the wedding itself. He doubted Wave would appreciate the two hedgehogs shuffling in to find their seats half-way through the vows. Especially after being generous enough to allow Shadow a last minute invitation as a plus one.
Rouge would be just giddy over the idea that Shadow legitimately cared about making a good impression on the blue hedgehog’s friends. Despite his tendency towards cynicism, Shadow had found himself double checking his quills, actively looking forward once again to going out with Sonic.
Which was precisely why he’d told Rouge only the barest plans he had for the day and did his best to keep any nerves in check. The last thing he needed was Rouge being tempted to wedding crash.
Shadow drummed another quick, louder, knock on the front door when no one answered.
Unlike his own brownstone apartment on the far edge of the university district, this low-rise was sat back from the Westopolis shoreline. The building was on the older side of the century, just two stories tall and threatening to creak on the foundation, but the view of the ocean was stunningly unobstructed.
For all the teasing threats of rented limos and walking leashes, both hedgehogs had decided it would be easiest to split a cab to the docks and take the short ferry ride to the venue island together. Shadow had spent the morning getting ready before coming over to pick Sonic up from the address he’d sent him a few hours ago. He’d even stopped by a stationary shop to pick out a congratulatory wedding card for the happy couple.
The dark hedgehog assumed Sonic would be waiting for him, ready to go like his texts promised, but when apt. 1-91B opened up, it was not the cobalt hedgehog on the other side, but a young fox with twin flicking tails.
An ebony ear twitched, belying his confusion, “Hello. Is Sonic here?”
Exacting blue eyes narrowed in calculation, the young fox’s judgement crinkling his nose as he stared down the smartly dressed hedgehog on the door step.
“Yeah that makes sense,” the teenager noted almost under his breath before turning to yell back into the apartment, “Sonic! Your date’s here!”
There was a call of Sonic’s unmistakable voice further inside that Shadow couldn’t fully make out but the sharp ears of the fox picked it up.
“You can come in, he’s been fixing his quills half the morning so who knows how much longer he’ll be,” the teenager said to Shadow and left the door open as he retreated back into the home.
“I assume you’re the younger brother?” Shadow ventured, as he stepped inside.
The apartment was small and not as much of a mess as Shadow had been suspecting. The front door opened up into a joined living room and unwalled kitchen, all lit by large windows.
A cheap couch was pushed up too close to the TV, with every home video game console available hooked up to the flat screen and crowding the entertainment center.
Bookshelves were bowed with the mixed weight of novels, engineering textbooks, and video game cases. Forgotten shoes were scattered across the floor and what ever take-out they’d had for lunch was left on the coffee table.
“Probably,” the teenage fox's reply was tinged with sarcasm, “Unless Sonic has secret other siblings he hasn’t told me about.”
While there wasn’t family resemblance in the species, there was in the ease of jumping to sardonic humor. Shadow wondered for a moment if, similar to these brothers, he sounded at all like his sister.
Rouge would probably think so but still say he was too pessimistic and responsible for his own good.
Why live a little when you can party a lot? The bat declared anytime Shadow would call it a night. For all her attempts to seem like an easy going party girl, Rouge was probably the most responsible and hardworking of their little friend group.
“Want something to drink?” Tails asked, remembering some of the manners Sonic had tried to instill in him, “We have soda, juice, melted popsicles, and water.”
The dark hedgehog didn’t question the shoddy list, “No, thank you. There’ll be refreshments at the reception.”
Tails gave a shrug and let the fridge door swing closed, snatching at clear plastic packaging filled with melted popsicle and a floating wooden stick, off the counter.
Down the hall, towards the bedrooms and bath, a hairdryer turned on and a door snapped closed to muffle the sound.
Making me wait? Shadow grumbled internally, he strongly disliked being late. That Jester better be worth it.
Taking up the minutes, Shadow paused in his subtle inspection of the home at one of the living room walls that was covered in photographs. The printed pictures were frameless and simply taped directly onto the wall in a way that could have been ill-advised artistic expression if Shadow didn’t suspect this was Sonic’s wholehearted attempt at decorating.
Most were of Sonic, Tails, and the blue hedgehog’s friends. Birthdays, BBQ’s, and years of candid friendship snapshotted in physical memories.
One picture was of Sonic, his green hawk and tenrec friends under each arm and all beneath the shade of palm trees. The photo was slightly blurred, everyone in mid-laugh as the picture was captured. It was a bright and chaotic and infused with charm.
It was a stark difference from the family portraits that were custom framed in Shadow’s own apartment. Posed photos of his and Maria’s graduations and an annual family photo with Gerald each year. Those were the photographs fit to be displayed in the Robotnik families’ minds.
The closest pictures Shadow had like Sonic’s were kept on his phone. Selfies stolen by Rouge and Silver. Tongue sticking out pics that Blaze coerced him into and candid snaps Maria took to pester her little brother. And his favorite, over a decade old but always kept close, was of the day he’d been officially adopted.
The posed photograph of himself, Maria and Gerald, with the certificate of adoption held up for posterity, was framed in his living room.
But the picture from moments after — the one where his sister had pulled out a party popper and set off the little firework in the family photo studio which caused the smoke detectors and sprinklers to go off, dousing them all in water — that one was printed pocket-sized and kept under the black case of his phone.
Shadow smiled a touch at the memory and he turned away from the photo wall.
Tails had plopped down at a small dining table, curling over the mess atop it with intense focus. The table was crammed into a corner closer to the door and was covered with a mishmash of wires, small appliance tools, and half-built race cars.
“What’s all this?” Shadow asked, moving to stand at the table, inspecting the work in progress but not touching anything.
“School project,” the fox, so quietly focused before now didn’t hold back from elaborating, “I’m taking extra credits at WCC this summer and the intro engineering professor made his first assignment open ended. Just need to build a functional machine that’s innovative.”
“And you’ve chosen race cars?”
Twin tails thwacked against the chair the fox sat in, his excitement at talking about his project barely contained, “Of course! I’m making them fully motorized by solar power! They’ll each have storage cells and when you pull them back for a charged race they’ll show the power level on the side.”
Shadow hummed, tilting his head to better read the scribbled schematics on loose leaf notebook paper, mentally checking the fox’s math on the solar cells, “You’re using germanium for one of the silicone layers,” the dark hedgehog realized, it wasn’t a question as he could see the material evidence on the table, “You should use a three layer approach with phosphorous and boron outside of the pure silicone. If you want higher thermal stability that’s where you start.”
Wide blue eyes darted down to his notes and Tails snatched up his pencil, erasing and writing over the solar cell notes, “Germanium’s a good semiconductor, but the phosphorous would transfer more electrons…” the fox trailed off as he continued to write, only pausing to throw a questioning look at the hedgehog. “How’d you know?”
Shadow was tempted to let the fox remain clueless. But his sister would never stand to leave a teachable moment on the table, so he wouldn’t either. Shadow only just started to explain the applications of his PhD to the little genius when he was interrupted.
A whirlwind of pretty green eyes and a smart mouth swept into the living room proper, ready to capture Shadow's undivided attention.
“He’s a space nerd that’s how,” a now familiar voice said, and Shadow turned to see Sonic standing at the hallway’s start, emerald eyes roving over the dark hedgehog. “Probably knows everything about solar power and stars and other hot stuff.”
Shadow barely heard the banter as he took in the sight of Sonic before him.
The cobalt hedgehog was dressed in a midnight blue suit, the shade just on the edge of deep space black, with a crisp new white button down beneath it. Once again Sonic had ditched wearing a tie, letting the top few buttons of the white shirt splay open, and a forest green kerchief was tucked into his suit jacket pocket. His quills had been freshly washed, styled back, and then ruffled with intention to look like he’d simply rolled out of bed. Even down to the leather derby shoes he wore, Sonic was dressed to the nines for the wedding day.
Silver was wrong, Shadow realized with a rush of cravings hitting him hard, Sonic didn’t just clean up nice, he scrubbed to breath-stealing temptation.
“You look good,” was all Shadow allowed himself to say. He couldn’t possibly tell Sonic just how damn fine he was in front of the other hedgehog’s little brother. But he’d find a moment to tell him, or show him, later.
“Do we still have time to run off together? Go get an early dinner and a late night?” Sonic grinned as he crossed the apartment, pausing before Shadow and needlessly fixing his tie.
The striped hedgehog had pulled out one of the nicer suits from his closet, one he’d hadn’t had reason to wear in some time, but was still fit for the day. The three piece suit was a perfectly tailored sweep of pitch black fabrics, the subtle pattern of the vest almost inscrutable with the dark on dark cloth. The only color to the suit was the glimmering red gems of his cuff links.
Shadow, dressed to his namesake, looked like a stormy bodyguard to Sonic’s easy going movie star appearance.
And the blue hedgehog could only just restrain himself from freeing the chest fluff he knew was hidden beneath that black dress shirt and vest.
Shadow tilted his head, trying to catch the heady eye contact of Sonic as he fussed again with the ink black tie. Slowly, the dark hedgehog took Sonic’s wrists, extracting them from the fabric and squeezing them in a silent warning.
Sonic took a measured step away, sharp incisors gnawing at the inside of his cheek to keep indecent remarks in.
The black cloth of Shadows formal gloves pulled taunt as his hands flexed, his willpower wrestling with his instinct to grab hold of Sonic and pull him back for a real ‘hello’.
“What are your intentions with my brother?” Tails asked, breaking the hushed tension between the hedgehogs after having only given his brother’s arrival a sparing glance.
The dark hedgehog was taken aback by the directness of the fox. He was unable to tell from his flitting twin tails and nose buried in a textbook just how serious the teenager was.
“Ignore him,” Sonic laughed as he crossed to the kitchen table to ruffle the mop of longer yellow fur on the fox’s head, much to his brother’s adamant annoyance, “He thinks he’s funny.”
“If I’m not funny than it’s because I learned all my jokes from you,” the fox mock growled, smacking at Sonic’s playful noogie.
That only incensed the blue hedgehog and in a split second he and his brother tussled into a mild play fight. Sonic yanked back the chair the fox was perched on, upending him in a roll of limbs only for Tails to dig his elbow into the lightly worn leather of Sonic’s shoe.
With a jokingly false howl of pain Sonic kicked up his leg, knee knocking into the table and disrupting the cluttered array of tools and papers.
Tails shouted in outrage as race cars rolled and fell down atop him, “Watch the project!”
Sonic threw his hands up in caution, only wanting to annoy his brother, not ruin his hard work.
But in the next moment Tails was up and throwing two of the race cars at his brothers face, taking advantage of the caution brought by the apology.
Watching the siblings bicker brought a tumble of amusement to Shadow, and he shook his head disparagingly at the brothers.
They only found a small truce when Sonic had caught and held all of race cars high above the fox’s head, the canidae still hadn't hit a growth spurt and couldn’t reach them without climbing onto the dining table.
“Don’t give my date the shovel talk and you can have these back,” Sonic cornered, wiggling the race cars above his head.
Tails growled, sharp eyes unblinking, but after a moment he gave in, “Fine, he doesn’t seem that bad anyway.”
“Oh he’s bad alright,” Sonic threw the coy words over his shoulder at Shadow.
The other hedgehog snorted dismissively, reminding himself once again to keep it together. He should be making a good first impression on Sonic’s closest living relative, Shadow told himself sternly, Not getting swept up in his shameless flirting.
Even if he did like what Sonic had to say. And how he said it.
Dropping his hands in the small truce the brothers had formed, Sonic returned the race cars to the begrudging teen. He was distracted from further pestering the fox in the next instance when his phone rang loudly from down the hall.
“You’ll silence that before the ceremony?” Shadow questioned as Sonic darted towards the hallway. Even though Shadow didn’t know Wave much at all, he was confident she’d be livid if her husband’s groomsmen got a blaring loud phone call as she walked down the aisle.
Sonic’s shout of, “Course I will…probably,” did little to assure the striped hedgehog.
“You didn’t answer the question,” The fox spoke up, immediately breaking his brother’s request, as he reshuffled papers back into place.
Ebony ears could just pick up the subtle sound of Sonic on the phone, talking fast with someone on the other line, but he was down the hall and regrettably out of sight. So when Shadow turned to the young fox, it was with a clear mind and steady heart, neither impeded by the intoxicating presence of the cobalt hedgehog.
“If you’re asking whether I’ll make an honest hedgehog out of him,” Shadow mused much to the fox’s dismay as his nose scrunched and shoulder fur bristled disagreeably, “Then no. Not yet. But I have every intention of treating him right.”
Fox snout still screwed up in revolt, Tails scrutinized his brother's choice, weighing his answer carefully.
“Sonic can be… flighty,” Tails cautioned, “He doesn’t always think stuff through and it gets him into trouble. I don’t want my brother in trouble.”
Shadow paused, sensing for the first time the genuine concern in Tails’ voice.
He just wanted to protect his brother.
Maria had done something similar that morning, when Shadow had told her where he’d be that afternoon. His sister had immediately pulled out her laptop before he’d finished speaking, demanding a name so she could investigate the cobalt hedgehog on Solgram, ChaosChat, and Flicky.
Shadow had expected nothing less from Maria but he’d briskly told her to keep anything she found to herself. He wanted to get to know Sonic on his own terms. Not from the overprotective snooping of his sister.
The dark hedgehog shifted, not forcing Tails to meet his eye but making sure he knew he had nothing to hide in the willingness to hold his gaze and the steadiness in his voice.
“Your brother is… perplexingly charming," Shadow admitted, "I don’t understand how he's talked me into being here. But he has been successful in defying my better judgement. While he may be heedless and indiscreet, I’m not shaking and I’m not turning tail. I can handle trouble if it comes for him.”
Or for me.
After a moment, sitting in the certainty of Shadow’s claims, Tails looked up to meet his gaze, “Okay. Just don’t break his heart. We only have melted popsicles so he can’t cry out his feelings into ice cream.”
Shadow snorted with some amusement at that conjured image and held out his hand to shake the teenager’s.
“My name is Shadow, I’ll be Sonic’s date for the evening,” he said formally.
And with a belabored roll of his eyes, the fox reached out to return the handshake.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Tails. My brother is probably more work than he’s worth but good luck trying,” the fox nodded, dropping the handshake to grab for another melted popsicle.
“I’ll see about that,” Shadow countered. Surprising himself at the sincerity. In just a few days of knowing him, Shadow wanted to know Sonic. Carnally yes, but beyond that too. He shook his quills out, burying the idea as it began to take root.
The seconds of calm between the fox and the hedgehog were dashed away when Sonic reappeared from the hallway.
“You guys talkin' about me?” The blue hedgehog asked, fiddling with his phone’s notification sound settings.
“Yes,” Tails and Shadow said at once and Sonic looked up, freezing mid step at the new found solidarity.
“Mmm-‘kay, well don’t let my presence stop the compliments,” Sonic rolled back into motion, never caught off guard for long. “We’re heading out now Tails, but that was Surge on the phone. Kit and Charmy are on their way and Cream is running late but she’ll be here.”
“Don’t see why we can’t go to the wedding too,” The foxed grumbled, his tall ears drooping back against his head, “I want cake and Kit wanted to object.”
“It’s a ‘no kids’ wedding bud, Wave’s rule,” Sonic reminded him for the umpteenth time, double checking that he had his wallet and phone tucked into his suit jacket, “You’ll have fun here. Cream’s bringing a lasagna and brownie mix and Charmy’s got the new Minesweeper. You’ll be fine.”
Tails sat up straight, ears perking again, “Brownies?”
“Yes, but dinner first,” the blue hedgehog said as he snatched up his apartment keys from the counter and shoved them into his quills for safe keeping.
Shadow tracked the haphazard progress to leave that Sonic made, noting that he’d have to allot extra ‘get ready’ time for future dates with the hedgehog.
This Jester was making himself worth the hold up in those suit pants though, Shadow mused to himself, letting his gaze dip down the curve of Sonic's backside for a split second. If this took any longer Shadow would be tempted to pull up a chair and enjoy the show as Sonic moved around the room in that casually attractive suit.
The gentle, unintentional idea of more times like this with Sonic caressed at Shadow’s awareness but didn’t unearth enough for him to recognize the fantasy for what it was.
Giving one last whirl around, triple checking he had everything he needed, Sonic tripped forward, almost smashing head first into Shadow.
The dark hedgehog caught him easily, the scant inch of height Sonic had on him disappearing when he leaned into this sudden embrace.
They had been closer on that chair in After Dark and again in the back room of Raw Honey. And yet this intimacy of Sonic’s hug in his apartment brought spark of nerves to the dark hedgehog.
“Ready now?” Shadow rumbled, his nose twitching once at the closeness of the other. The blackberry and bay scents of Sonic were utterly intoxicating to the striped hedgehog and he had a difficult second remembering to keep his wits about him again.
With a cheeky bite to his lip, Sonic took hold of Shadow’s wrist, twisting his forearm and pushing up the black silk fabric of his cuff to check the clock face.
“We can make it if we leave now,” Sonic determined, shifting and placing both hands on broad shoulders, ready to push Shadow backwards out the door, “And if we run down the dock and maybe leap the ship railing we’ll make it with a minute to spare.”
Shadow wasn’t so easily moved, and with a light, steadying grasp to Sonic’s forearms, he prompted roughly, “Forgetting something?”
“Umm?” Cobalt brows furrowed as Sonic searched for whatever Shadow was hinting at, only to gasp with a flicker of realization.
Sonic dipped forward then, pressing a gentlemanly kiss to honey dark muzzle, right on the corner of his mouth just as Shadow had done the day before to him.
“You look really nice too,” Sonic smiled warmly, breath ghosting along the dark fuzz of his date's cheek.
“No,” Shadow huffed, pulling back to stop any further blush from blooming, “Where’s your wedding gift?”
“Oh shit,” Sonic let out a laugh at the realization and stepped back to spin around the apartment once again. The blue hedgehog shuffled containers of the lunch leftovers on the coffee table, dug around in worn couch cushions, and went so far as to check inside the fridge.
Shadow wasn’t entirely sure how the popsicles couldn’t have made it into the freezer but this wedding gift could have been set inside with the butter and fresh fruit.
“Ah-hmm,” Tails cleared his throat, waving two crisp pieces of paper out for his brother. They’d been shuffled into the mess of the kitchen table at some point that morning and would have been lost entirely if not for the fox’s keen eye.
“Thanks bud!” Sonic took the papers with a smile and whirled around to hold them out for Shadow to see.
It was obvious from the set of his shoulders, and lift of his chin, that Sonic was proud of his choice in gift but Shadow would still scrutinize it. After all, it was one of two things he’d promised the bride.
Crimson eyes quickly scanned over the papers, noting the smudged fresh ink and scribbled out note of congrats in Sonic’s flourishing handwriting.
“They’re tickets to a motocross expo in a few months,” Shadow noted, not distastefully, “Whole weekend VIP tickets with track-side access?”
Sonic grinned, “Trust me, they’re gonna love this!”
The striped hedgehog shrugged, Sonic knew his friends better than Shadow could, and pulled the wedding card he’d picked up that morning out of his inner pocket. Opening the envelope, Shadow folded and tucked the printed tickets inside.
“Later Tails!” Sonic called over his shoulder and stepped out onto the apartment’s front door landing.
The fox hollered a goodbye back to his brother, and just before the door clicked shut, he snapped a quick ‘see ya’ for the dark hedgehog.
Shadow considered that a first impression victory.
“What’d you get them?” Sonic asked, jogging the few steps down to street level.
The striped hedgehog smirked, keeping pace, and slipped the card from its envelope. Flipping it open, he held out the cardstock to show Sonic as they slid into the backseat of their ride share.
Emerald eyes dilated as he read the glittering gold gel pen across the bottom half of the card, huffing in disbelief at the phone number scrawled at the very end.
For a good time call Golden Apple - Silver xxx