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Rouge finds him on the couch, sitting in the dark.
Shadow is unmoving, right in the middle, an even amount of empty cushion on either side. He wears a pair of pink pyjama pants that used to be hers. The glow of the city through the uncovered windows casts strange patterns over his face.
She doesn’t doubt that he had been staring off into space until he had heard her footsteps. His eyes have been on her ever since she opened the front door. If anyone else had their head turned at the angle Shadow does, she would assume they were dead.
“Hi, darling,” Rouge greets, voice just barely carrying over the space between them.
Shadow hums, still watching.
So, it was one of those nights.
He doesn’t move from his seat as Rouge takes off her gloves and changes her boots for slippers. Doesn’t move as she flits around the apartment to put her things away. His gaze follows her dutifully, but she feels his eyes move from her face to her shoulders, to her wings, her legs, her feet, and then all the way back up again.
Rouge pauses to scan his face. She asks, “Did you eat?” And sees his answer just fine as he averts his stare for just a moment.
“Do you want something?” Rouge murmurs as she finally bothers to turn on a lamp. Not that they needed it.
He hums again in response. No, he didn’t.
There is a single mug in the dishrack, from Shadow’s tea or coffee earlier that night, along with a cutting board, knife, and two spoons. Rouge puts them all away when she sees that they have dried. When she checks the fridge, Rouge notices three new glass jars of overnight oats, each with a unique mixture of toppings. Lots of fruit.
Rouge shuts the fridge with her foot before moving to stand behind the couch. Shadow sees her approach, so he doesn’t jump when she lightly scratches the fur between his ears under her painted fingernails.
“Ten minutes,” she tells him quietly and presses a shiny green apple to his chest.
Shadow nods, just a minute dip of his head.
His hands lift, slow and cautious, covering hers. Rouge turns her hand under his and lets him take the apple from her, pushing it firmly into the curve of his palm.
Rouge hesitates briefly before dipping down to press her lips to the same place atop his head. It leaves a smear of rosy, glossy lipstick in his fur, which she rubs away with her thumb and a light chuckle. Shadow doesn’t complain, which means she won’t learn her lesson.
She steps away then, moving towards her bedroom.
Rouge returns to the living room nine minutes later, bare faced, showered, and dressed in her own pyjamas.
Shadow is once again watching her from the same spot on the couch as soon as she opens her door, but the lamp is off now, the curtains are shut, the apple gone. Hopefully eaten.
When she doesn’t move any more than a metre from her bedroom, Shadow stands and moves to her without a sound. Well, without a sound that would be heard by the average person.
For once, Rouge is the one humming as she turns back around. Shadow follows her into the room, shutting the door behind himself without needing a reminder.
Living together had been tough at first, with an amnesiac Shadow having no other real option, and Rouge being chronically independent all her life. They were both stubborn, unintentionally rude, simple and excessively complicated.
But over time, they had gotten more used to each other, more comfortable. Intimate, if Rouge wanted to push it. They learnt more about each other as the weeks, months, and years have passed. More than either of them really wanted to share. Now Rouge can’t imagine her apartment, her life, without him in it.
Climbing into bed together is less of a capital ‘s’ situation than it used to be too.
Shadow has his own bed, his own room, just down the hall, but sometimes he can’t stand being alone. On most days, it was perfectly fine with Rouge. She had a double bed and was more than happy to share it. On the days she wasn’t, Rouge’s solution was chick flicks and wine.
Tonight, though, Rouge slides into her bed on the right, and Shadow moves to the left. Rouge rests on her side facing him, wings laying stagnant against the sheets behind her. He always starts on his back, straight as a board, palms flat on the mattress on either side of his body. When Rouge asked one time, he said it was out of habit.
The only thing that remains slightly awkward is the process of getting Shadow to be less like a statue and more like a teddy bear.
He refuses to ask outright, bar one time when he was trembling so hard Rouge could hear his teeth chattering. So, she is forced to read his body language, which is a complicated task considering this was Shadow the fucking Hedgehog.
Still, practice makes perfect. Progress. Whatever.
Rouge takes in his expression. Shadow is staring resolutely at the ceiling, refusing eye contact. It was funny how he could go from almost creepily staring to essentially refusing to acknowledge Rouge entirely. As if he wasn’t the one who wanted to be here in the first place.
It was in the curve of his frown, the set of his shoulders, the smallest angling of his ears. Nothing could be clearer to Rouge.
She finds Shadow’s bicep beneath the blankets and uses it to find his elbow. She gives the lightest pull, and he willingly moves as if she had tugged with all of her strength.
Carefully, mindful of his own quills, Shadow curls into her arms. His head ends up wedged beneath Rouge’s chin, which she has found he rather likes. Tentatively, Shadow’s arm slowly moves to wrap around her waist. With much more confidence, Rouge lets their legs tangle loosely together, puts her hand on the dip of his spine, the other at the back of his head, and kisses between his ears again. He gives a low, muffled exhale against her throat.
“Comfortable, hon?” Rouge checks softly as her fingers start to card through his quills.
Shadow makes a distracted noise in agreement and burrows himself closer.
She has spent maybe too much time wondering about why Shadow enjoys this so much. Seems to need it like most would need oxygen. Security was the main reason Rouge could come up with, the most plausible. Simple touch-starvation was another. The want to feel small was something Rouge had recently been considering. Especially with how Shadow seemed to ball up and tuck himself into her chest. She suspected he didn’t liked being the most powerful being in the world all of the time. Everyone needed their government-mandated break, even ‘superweapons’.
Rouge can understand, in her own sort of way. Sometimes she longed to be able to fit in her mother’s warm arms again, to cling to her body and feel safe in a way that could not be replicated. It was something she wishes she could remember and not have to just imagine wistfully.
At times, it was hard to believe that Shadow would seek such comfort in her. That he could look at a woman like her, a dishonest, manipulative, rotten thief, and relax. They share cutlery, space, money, history, and he barely flinches anymore. Rouge finds that she doesn’t either. She hasn’t needed to hide herself for a long time.
Now, as Shadow begins to contently rumble in her arms, breathing starting to slow, Rouge is yet again reminded of how it feels to trust and be trusted.