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Shadow didn’t understand why he had agreed to come to this place. The smell of used frying oil was disgusting, bright fluorescent lights mixed with colored party lights to an eye-watering degree, and some top forty playlist echoed across the large open room and grated on his ear drums. It was his least favorite kind of place to be, if not the worst he could imagine. Of course nobody else viewed it that way, especially the one who had dragged him here, Sonic.
“Yo, what’s taking you so long? Did you already forget how to tie shoelaces so soon after doing mine?”
The black and red hedgehog pulled himself out of his thoughts, shooting an annoyed glance up at the blue hedgehog sitting next to him, his legs idly moving back and forth while he stared at the Ultimate Lifeform with a smile.
“My memory isn’t the issue, the fact that I’m in this building is.”
Sonic responded by closing the small gap of space between them to lean against Shadow, smile growing bigger as he raised a brow,
“You want to tell me about another place where we can rent skates for cheap? Or anywhere else that’s this quiet at this time of day?”
The hybrid looked away at that, knowing the other was right and not wanting to verbally admit it, taking a breath and grimacing at the oily air. This experience would easily be ten times worse with the presence of other people, so he had to be begrudgingly thankful for Sonic putting some thought into planning ahead.
Shadow’s head shot up as he heard a sharp gasp next to him, sighing when he found the source of the noise was Sonic now standing up, arms thrown out in front of him as he wobbled precariously on the spot. Of course he refused to listen to the hybrid’s request to wait for him to finish getting ready.
“Will you exercise some patience, Hedgehog?”
Despite his unsure start, the other found his balance and began to walk forward, the blue hedgehog letting out a confident laugh, glancing over his shoulder at Shadow with an arrogant smirk.
“I’m only gonna wait at the entrance! We’d probably be out there and on lap two by now if you weren’t so focused on tying laces.”
Instead of bringing up how Sonic was likely to twist his ankle with loose-fitting shoes, Shadow huffed and turned his attention back to his skates, hurrying to finish instead of taking his time like he wanted to. At least Sonic did as he said and stopped by the entrance to the wooden rink floor, waiting for Shadow as he started to tie the laces on his last skate. With a final tug the hybrid finished his knot, reassured by the firm pressure around both of his ankles as he stood up, walking over to where Sonic stood at the opening to the roller rink. The blue hedgehog was now leaning in a relaxed stance against the half wall that surrounded the rink, watching Shadow as he approached with the same smirk still on his face.
“About time Faker,” He gestured to the roller rink, “since you were so worried about me going out all by my lonesome, you can step onto the floor first.”
Shadow did his best to refrain from rolling his eyes at the other, instead stepping onto the wood and shooting forward before transitioning to skate backwards, going up onto both of his toe stops to quickly come to a halt a couple feet away. He also had to refrain from smirking as he caught the subtle look of awe in Sonic’s eyes, instead crossing his arms and leaning his weight onto one foot to keep from losing his balance.
“Your turn, Faker.”
The awe in the other’s emerald eyes quickly turned into eager determination, Sonic straightening up and moving to stand in the rink opening.
“Alright! Time to get our skate on!”
The Blue Blur finally took a step onto the wood floor, one skate-clad foot keeping steady for a moment, following up with the next step that took him completely off the carpet—
Shadow shot forward as Sonic near instantly had his feet roll out from underneath him, grabbing past pinwheeling arms and holding the hero up as he covered his scared yelp with a hurried laugh,
“Whoo -ha ha! Nice catch, Shads!”
The Ultimate Lifeform sighed while helping Sonic to grab onto the half-wall, Shadow crossing his arms and frowning as the blue hedgehog focused on preventing his feet from slipping out again,
“You shouldn’t throw your arms out like that when you start to fall. You run the risk of breaking your wrist by trying to catch yourself that way. Bring your limbs in towards yourself instead, it helps to center your gravity. You literally do it all the time when you homing-attack anything.”
Sonic gave a quick thumbs up before grabbing at the wall again, looking down at his feet and experimentally moving them, likely getting used to the rolling sensation. Now that Shadow thought about it, he couldn’t recall Sonic talking about roller-skating before asking him if he wanted to do this excursion. As far as he knew, the blue hedgehog preferred doing board activities, whether it be skate, snow, or air. Knowing Sonic, he must’ve at least done this once or twice before.
As Sonic started to move, Shadow did as well to make space, easily moving backwards while the other struggled to move forward.
“Has it been a while since you last went roller-skating?”
The blue hedgehog laughed, finally getting into the motion of pushing to glide forward and removing a hand from the wall, taking his first few longer strides as he responded,
“This is my first time!”
As soon as he heard that Shadow swerved off and away from the wall, grappling with his sudden confusion as much as Sonic was with figuring out how to stop, unsure what exactly it was over.
“You haven’t done any of this before today?”
Sonic finally stopped a ways from where Shadow stood, having used a combination of grabbing at the wall and using his toe-stops, glancing over a shoulder and shrugging,
“Uh. . . yeah? Never really wanted to before.” Sonic carefully stepped around to face Shadow, reaching a hand up to scratch at his nose as he furrowed a brow in thought, “I guess the idea of strapping something onto my feet always felt weird? So I never bothered with trying anything other than boards and stuff.”
That answer satisfied part of Shadow’s confusion. The black and red hedgehog pushed his legs in one long stride to roll closer to Sonic, crossing his arms as he asked his next question,
“Then, what made you think of suggesting this?”
The other smiled, gesturing towards Shadow,
“Well, you literally have skates on all--”
“Air shoes.”
Shadow bit his tongue after those two words came out unbidden, ignoring the warmth in his cheeks when Sonic snickered at his retort, “--my bad, your ‘ air shoes ’, all the time, so I figured you would be good on wheels, and I was right!”
Sonic then winked at Shadow and bumped an elbow against his arm,
“I also saw you watching a group of roller skaters the last time we stopped by the boardwalk, so I knew you had some interest in it too.”
Shadow turned his head away at that as his flushed cheeks grew hotter, knowing exactly what instance Sonic was talking about. The last time he had seen anybody on a pair of rollerskates was a long time ago, so seeing that happy, carefree group brought back memories of strap-on skates, laps around the planet, and racing down hallways surrounded by stars. He glanced back at Sonic, curious about one last thing,
“So. . . what do you get out of this?” His next breath of the disgusting air around them made him grimace and add onto his sentence, “Other than the promise of getting the kind of food you always eat.”
Sonic chuckled and held his hands up, “Guilty as charged on the food!” He paused after that, one of his hands going up to smooth over his quills, responding in a soft tone as emerald eyes glanced off to the side, “And, well. . . I wanted to spend time with you, doing something that you like.”
Shadow blinked, warmth blooming in his chest at those words, glancing down at their skate-clad feet.
“Ah. . . I see.”
They shared in the quiet for a moment, eyes eventually landing on each other again, Sonic taking the initiative to break it as he held out a hand,
“Well, since I can move without falling flat on my face, you ready to skate together?”
Shadow let himself softly smile, taking Sonic’s offered hand as they both began to roll forward. He still hated the smell in the air and wished the music would turn off, but it wasn’t so bad with his partner by his side.