S'Mores and Snores: A Sonic Forces Sonadow Tale

In the picturesque rolling meadows of Green Hill Zone, a deafening silence followed as a crowd of Mobians eyes kept their eyes on Sonic. They all knew the difficulties of the task, and while they had always believed in their closest friend and saviour, doubts lingered in their minds.

Sonic the Hedgehog stepped forward, ready to face a challenge that Tails was sure put to shame all the other obstacles the blue hero had faced. Infinite? Eggman? Glitches? Armies of robots? These myriads of threats paled to what Sonic had to do right now. Tails felt sympathy for the nervous hedgehog, for the task before he was by no means an easy feat even for a fearless hero like Sonic.

"Come on, Sonic," Knuckles muttered, leaning forward. "You can do it..."

Tails turned to his left; he saw the rest of his friends staring intently at Sonic, who was sweating like a pig. Sonic took another deep breath, and mumbled to himself—Tails reasoned they were words of reassurance. No turning back now.

"Alright, here we go..." Sonic said raising his head up.

Pure determination ran across his face, he couldn't turn back now that he had put himself in this situation. To an extent, Sonic felt the six months of confinement by Eggman were pleasant compared to what he had to endure now.

With careful precision, Sonic reached out with his hand on the fountain pen and gingerly applied the fragile nib on the questions presented before him. Licking his lips, he wrote his answer down in small neat strokes and small flicks of the pen. A pool of sweat began to form underneath Sonic's shaking form as the row of equations grew in line and inched closer and closer to the end. Although tempted to give his one-time enemy and now friend some moral support, Shadow kept his mouth shut in fear of ruining Sonic's concentration.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, the equation was completed. They stood still, surrounded by the pale-yellow glow of a lantern that Tails had held up. Shadow could literally see the veins in Sonic's eyes, ready to burst from the pressure building up inside. With one last cry, Sonic capped the pen before he threw his arms into the air and fell on his butt, breathing heavily.

"Yep, Sonic can definitely do Grade twelve Algebra. The answer checks out." Tails confirmed.

"Woohoo!" Amy cried out, jumping up in joy and skipping toward her stunned hero. "You did it, Sonic! I really didn't think you were actually going to do it, being the loveable hero with an attitude that we all know and love. But hallelujah, lo and behold you did it! You actually went ahead and did it!"

Sonic sputtered, tried to say something, but was interrupted by the roaring laughter of her other friends, who were too busy laughing to stay on their feet. Silver, kicking his legs in the air, pointed at Twilight. "That was the best expression ever! Jeez, if I knew that dare was going to make you act like that, I would have gotten a camera!"

"Is all that because I dared you to sniff Tail's feet on my last turn, isn't it?" Sonic demanded, glaring at the howling telekinetic hedgehog.

"Now, now, Sonic. You did the dare like a champ and everybody is so proud at you for defying stereotypes," Silver said, holding back a snicker. "You're thinking expression was utter hilarity. It's like your eyes were about to pop out."

"Yeah, that would have been really funny. Icky, but funny," Amy pointed out, sticking her tongue out.

"I humbly declare that such a sight tickled my fancies," Blaze stated, using her Princess of Sol accent that Silver had dared her to employ for one full hour earlier in the game. "But perhaps we should all adjourn to our little soiree before we embarrass poor Sonic?"

"Camping, Blaze" Amy corrected.

"Indeed, that was precisely what I was saying."

The six friends nodded—even Sonic after calming down—and they proceeded to move back to their sleeping bags. Shadow laid down on his dark grey one while Tails went ahead and worked on putting out the campfire. The rest of the former members of the resistance used the lull to engage in small talk while Shadow heaved a great sigh of relief. Looking back, it seemed his suspicions that the event would be a washout seemed completely unfounded.

Thus far, the camping trip had been nothing but fun. They made mouth-watering s'mores, beat each other senseless in a pillow fight, avoided telling scary stories—much to Sonic's disappointment—and truth and dare had been very exciting.

Like when Silver dared Tails to eat a bug. Or when Shadow had dared Silver to sing an operetta. There were some good truths too. Shadow would never have believed that Sonic was secretly an erudite or that Tails had a fear of thunder.

As he pondered on the night's events, Shadow felt a small yawn escape her lips. It didn't go unnoticed by Blaze. "I do believe that our very dear friend Shadow is getting a bit tired. Perhaps we should all tuck in for the night."

"Wait! Wait!" Amy begged "It's my turn! I wanna have one more turn! Please!"

"I'm feeling really beat but alright, Amy. Fine, we can end the game with you," Sonic said, rolling his eyes at his admirer's behaviour.

"Yahoo!"

Tails soon returned from his inspection and, after explaining the situation, they all sat down for one last round. Amy turned her head and glanced at each of them while rubbing her chin. They waited patiently for Amy to choose which of the Mobian would get the last truth or dare, but eventually Sonic blurted out, "Ugh! Just choose somebody quick already!"

Amy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "This is a toughie... I shall have to use the most ancient and wise way of deciding impossible choices to solve this one." They looked at each other with raised eyebrows before Amy raised a hand and pointed it at each of them in order. "Eenie, Meenie, Miney, mo, catch a tiger by the toe. If he hollers, let him go, Eenie, Meenie, Miney, mo... you... are... mine!"

Her finger was pointed at Shadow who gulped. "Um... truth?"

Groaning, Sonic's hand made contact with her own forehead. "Again?! You always choose the truth! Why can't you do a dare for once?!"

"Sonic, lighten-up. Honestly, it's Shadow's choice and if he wants to pick truth then let him," chided Knuckles.

Shadow grumbled looking down, avoiding Sonic annoyed stare. It was true that he had always picked 'truth' all the time, mostly because he was afraid of being dared to do something that would embarrass himself and ruin his careful cultivated stoicism. Still, it wouldn't be unfair to every one of his friends if he just did truth all the time...

"Okay, I'll do a dare," Shadow muttered, surprising his friends.

"Are you sure, Shadow?" Tails asked. "You don't have too if you don't want to."

"I'm sure," Shadow reassured.

Amy smirked and went back to rubbing her chin. Shadow gulped and felt his heart hammering away into his chest whatever challenge she had just resigned herself too. After a minute of waiting, Amy's eyes opened wide and she gave a grin that made sent a chill up Shadow's spine. "I dare you..." Amy looked around the room before pointing her right gloved hand at the hero of Mobius . "...to kiss Sonic there on the lips for one whole minute!"

The entire library was silent for only a split second before both Sonic and Shadow screamed in unison, "What?!"

"Oh, my," Silver gasped, placing a hand against his chest. "Isn't that going a bit too far, Amy?"

"Nope! It's the perfect way to end a game of truth and dare! Besides, it's not really a good game unless you have a kissing dare played."

Tails pulled out his well-thumbed copy of 'Slumber 101: All you ever wanted to know about slumber parties but were afraid to ask' and rapidly flipped to the truth or dare section. After reading the next few lines, Tails presented the book to his friends and pointed to the relevant passage. "I hate to say it, but Amy's right. It says right here a kissing dare is one of the most popular and fun dares to do in the game."

"Lemme see that … closely" Shadow demanded.

"No, Shadow" Tails protested, cuddling the book against his chest "Besides, it's kind of a library book and I'm afraid what you'll do to it."

Shadow groaned. His last way out, shut.

Everybody then turned to the two hedgehogs, who were simultaneously doing their best to hide not only their blush but each other's gaze. Shadow was now mentally beating himself up for not listening to his honed combat instincts and wished he could use his 'Chaos Control' to get a message back to his past self and warn his past self not to take the choice. He glanced at Sonic from out of the corner of his eye to see Shadow nervously running one hand to the back of his neck, keeping his eyes focused on the floor.

Just then, as Shadow was seeing the life flash before his eyes, he was suddenly struck with an epiphany. This was going to be his very first kiss. Never in his life had the Ultimate Lifeform known affection from anyone beside Maria. Oh, most certainly there had been a couple of flings in his life but never for long and they never progressed past the first date.

It was now a bit much that a fellow comrade-in-arms would be the first someone to take away his lip purity. Shadow had once read a dating magazine out of boredom and even he knew that a first kiss was always special, but how did that even apply in a case like this?

"W-well, I'm not one for backing out so..." Sonic turned his head towards Shadow and took a deep breath. "... I'm willing to do it if you are."

Shadow gulped and slowly turned to his comrade-in-arms to meet him face to face. During the war against Robotnik and Infinite he had trusted Sonic with his life and in spite of early misgivings, Sonic had never given him reason to question his trust.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Shadow's heart began to thump so hard he was shocked it had not burst out of her chest. Turning red, Shadow began to move slowly forward, coming inches before Sonic's lips. The two of them looked into each other's eyes.

More than anything, Shadow wished to be swallowed by the ground. He could already imagine Rogue catching wind of this and his reputation at G.U.N forever ruined: Sonic and him, lips locked in that compromising position for a full sixty seconds in front of his friends.

With his entire view dominated by Sonic's confident smirk and fiercely shimmering eyes, he couldn't even turn his head to look at his other friends' reaction, doing such would surely cause him to panic. Well, more than she was now. Much to Shadow's surprise, Sonic showed no such hesitation making the first move, leaning forward with his eyes closed and awaiting his partner's response.

Realizing there was no way out of this, Shadow took a deep breath and followed his former rival's example.

Their lips touched.

Like a bolt of lightning, Shadow was hit with a wave of emotions he had only ever felt once before: aboard the Ark with Maria Kintobar. His entire body shivered like it had been simultaneously dumped in snow and then warmed up by the sun at full blast. Shadow's mind went blank as if every nerve he had in her body felt more energized than before. He could hear nothing, could feel nothing else but the lips of Sonic which tasted like exotic spices from Shamar. The world had suddenly come to an unexpected halt for Shadow as he kept his lips pressed against Sonic's.

And then it was over.

Sonic separated from Shadow, without saying a word or even looking him in the eye. Shadow, still recovering from the experience, didn't say anything either. All he could remember was Silver saying it was time for bed before they each went to their respective sleeping bags. He vaguely remembered saying goodnight in return and the lanterns were doused, leaving him to think about the kiss all alone in the dark...

... and how good the experience was.

A/N:

Behold! My attempt at writing a post-Sonic Forces drabble involving Sonic and his friends enjoying a much-needed break after having defeated the forces of Eggman and Infinite.

If you have an 'OC' rookie or some other scene with the canon characters you would like me to do please feel free to drop me a request. I take most requests except for the explicit ones as my stories are seen by my family and I prefer to keep things 'family friendly'.

Edit: Corrected embarassing replace error

Cheerio.