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"HEY GUYS-!!"
A shout from Sonic rang out across the house, interrupting the previously quiet afternoon and startling the youngest of the three while the dark hedgehog barely spared a glance towards the blue blur barging into the living room. It wasn't uncommon for Sonic to struggle with controlling his volume within his excitement, however Silver hadn't been around often enough to have the same form of desensitization. With a jolt, the silver hedgehog covered his ears as the sound of Sonic crashing into the side of the living room echoed across the walls.
“Woah, woah- what’s the rush, Sonic? Er, a bigger rush! ..Are you okay?” Silver muttered the last part out sheepishly, almost forgetting the fact that the other had completely just crashed into a wooden wall.
“Never better!” Sonic groaned out, repositioning from his fall and back onto his feet in under a second; the large grin never leaving his face. “It’s snowing guys! Come look!”
“Snow..?” Silver tilted his head, echoing out the unfamiliar word. “What’s that?”
“You don’t know what snow is? Wait- right, riiight.. Future. Disaster. Yeah, okay, just come look!”
With another dash, Sonic had grabbed both of the others by one hand, dragging along Shadow while Silver followed in curious eagerness to find what had caused the blue hedgehog to become so excited about a day like this.
The three of them were soon out on the freshly laid snow, both Sonic and Shadow having a clear footing; albeit Shadow struggled occasionally with his rocket boots getting stuck. Silver looked around in shock at how different everything had suddenly become, the white fluff covering everything the eye could see, replacing the bright happy green grass with strange and cold..snow?
“Woahh..This is snow?”
“Yep!”
“What do you do in it?”
“This!”
With another flash of blue, Silver was suddenly pelted with snowballs while the sound of manic laughter followed. Sonic seemed to enjoy this snow quite a lot. The blue hedgehog grabbed each pile of snow, effortlessly smashing them into balls to be thrown once again before the other even had time to properly react. It had been a rather long time since Sonic had seen snow, maybe he missed it. Or maybe he missed Christmas Island, he wouldn’t know and he wouldn’t think about it too much. Right now he was busy focusing on this one-sided snowball fight.
“Hey Shadsy-! You should get in on this!”
“I don’t play in the snow.”
“Oh c’mon you just-“ Splat.
A sudden snowball being thrown, startling both of the hedgehogs before they noticed who had thrown it. Silver, still struggling with his aim without psychokinesis and generally just not being the best at throwing things, had managed to hit Shadow point blank. “Oops..”
“Alright..That’s it.”
With an annoyed mutter, Shadow slowly took off his rocket to regain his footing, carefully leaving them at the doorstep. He glared at Silver, scooping a loose pile of snow and tossing at him. It didn’t do much, just getting in the other hedgehog’s fur while he easily shook it off with a confused laugh.
“that wasn’t a snowball..”
Shadow growled a bit, getting further annoyed as he attempted a second time. His hands struggled with shaping the ball, jittery from the unnatural overflow of chaos energy in his hands. Sonic was quick to notice, stepping over and helping him cup the ball together with a small smile. “See? You got it!”
The dark hedgehog only rolled his eyes, not particularly happy about the fact he couldn’t do something as seemingly simple as squish a ball together. He sighed, looking down at his still shaking hands in frustration, taking a
moment to breathe before tossing it at Silver again, this time directly hitting the other in the face.
“Ack-!”
“Nice shot!” Sonic grinned at Shadow, chuckling to himself while he ran a few feet away within a second, grabbing his own snowballs. It was about to turn into a full on snow fight at this rate.
-
After an hour of tossing snow at one another, each hedgehog was more or less covered in snow and on the floor. They all were somewhat laughing; mostly Silver and Sonic of course while Shadow merely chuckled to himself. A rare sight either way.
Sonic laid in the snow calmly, thinking to himself before suddenly shooting up. “Hey! Guys, do you know what a snow angel is?”
“A what?”
“Sounds like something you’ve just made up.”
“Well, here. I’ll just show you then!” Sonic laughed, waiting for the other two to sit up before he suddenly plopped back down into the snow, quills spreading out against his head while he moved his limbs in an up and down motion. It confused both of the other hedgehogs, something that neither of them could understand.
Of course Silver was still the first to attempt whatever Sonic was doing, watching for a minute longer before repeating the steps. The cold snow felt weird against his thicker fur, but also felt fun at the same time. No wonder Sonic kept laughing so much in the snow.
The two hedgehogs soon finished their snow angels, getting up and comparing the differences in their quills with a smile. “Yours looks like it has an extra set of wings.” Sonic chuckled, patting Silver on the back proudly. He looked back over to Shadow with a raised eyebrow, the darker hedgehog just standing there with a blank expression.
“you don’t wanna join in on this?”
“I don’t see the..enjoyment in, snow angels.”
“fair enough,” He shrugged, “I’ll take the snowball fight as a win and leave it at that then.”
The other nodded, accepting the blue hedgehog not pushing his boundaries with the snow despite how excited the other was. He was practically vibrating with every extra minute they spent in the snow.
“Why do you like the snow so much, Sonic?” Silver questioned, shaking off the remaining bits of snow on his quills.
“Oh that’s easy, I’m from Christmas Island.”
“Christmas Island? What was that like?”
“Y’know, a place.” Sonic shrugged, putting his hands behind his head. It was normal for him to end up being somewhat vague about things in his past, so it was a surprise that he even mentioned his birthplace in the first place. It even had the added question of how he ended up in Green Hill.
“Alright..But, hey! Can we go explore? We’ve kind of just been hanging around here for awhile and I’m getting bored..”
“Sure! You up for it, Shads? You don’t exactly have your rocket boots on you.”
“I can handle myself perfectly fine.”
Sonic only shrugged again, smiling at Shadow. “Alright, your funeral.” He smiled, watching as Silver suddenly ran off in the snow, taking a bit to notice just how much the silver hedgehog actually blended in with the snow. That was, probably going to be a problem. And it was a bigger problem that Sonic couldn’t exactly run in the snow. And Shadow was without his rocket boots. ..Great.
“Hey! Silver-! Wait! …And he’s off.” The blue hedgehog sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose before looking back to Shadow. “Alright, guess we’re finding Silver now.”
“How lovely.”
“Aw c’mon Shadsy, it won’t be that bad! We just have to get through the..Growing snow storm, but that’s okay!”
“Of course you’d say something like that.” Shadow crossed his arms, partly as a way to keep himself warm. Despite his alien DNA and thick fur allowing him to run warmer than most mobians, the cold was starting to nip at him. He wanted to get it over with in finding Silver so they can go back inside and warm up properly.
---
It was seriously beginning to get cold after an hour of searching for Silver, the two hedgehogs calling out and looking through every mound or pile they could find. After another few attempts of calling out for the youngest hedgehog, they found him. In a giant cave that seemingly hadn’t existed before. The two gave one another a look before heading inside, Silver eagerly beckoning them to follow.
Sonic of course was the first to follow, with Shadow trailing behind in suspicion, because where had this cave come from? Well, it was the least of their concerns for now anyway. At least they had Silver back again, which is what mattered most to everyone.
“Where’d you run off to, Silv?”
“Run off? I thought you were right behind me!”
“Uhh..No, Shadow can’t wear his rocket boots in the snow and I can’t run great in the snow, too slippery.”
“Oh..Sorry! But hey, come look at this cool cave I found!”
“Woah- Hey Silver be careful!” Sonic yelled, suddenly being pulled forward by the eager hedgehog, looking back at Shadow for some attempt at help. But of course, the dark hedgehog only shook his head with.. A small smile? Weird. The two went deeper inside of the cave, and again Shadow trailing along after a minute of Sonic being dragged along.
The three soon stumbled across what Silver was so excited about, a large, frozen lake. Sonic looked at it with hesitance, glancing between Silver and Shadow. One almost vibrating with excitement and the other looking less than amused.
“it’s frozen water..What’s so exciting about this finding?”
“this!” Silver called out, running out onto the ice and suddenly sliding, laughing along the way. Silver smiled brightly at both of them, once again trying to beckon either of them to come closer. He wanted everyone to join in on the fun, but it seemed like Sonic definitely wasn’t going near it.
“C’mon Shadow! It’s fun, you’re not scared, right?” Silver grinned, attempting the same tactic that Sonic did. It was 50/50 on whether or not it would work, especially considering it was Silver attempting it instead of Sonic.
The trick did seem to work for a moment, getting an eye twitch out of Shadow. Yet the dark hedgehog refused to budge, simply letting out a sigh and an eye roll. The hedgehog instead sat down next to Sonic who stayed staring out at the frozen lake as if it would break at any moment.
He looked back to Shadow, giving the other a rather weak attempt at a smile. “Hey.. you should go out and have fun with Silver. I can wait.”
Shadow raised an eyebrow at that. “Hm. It’s not exactly like you to willingly sit and wait. If ever.”
He shrugged. “Yeah..But if it means you and Silver are getting along, I think I’ll be okay! Besides I’m getting.. kinda tired.”
Shadow studied Sonic intently, looking for any out. When he couldn’t find one, he just groaned internally and stood up, dusting himself off from just sitting in the really, really cold snow. It really was freezing out here, how was Silver fine with this?
Shadow looked down at the ice, grimacing as he put his paws down onto the slippery flooring, almost falling immediately. With another grunt, and spite, he regained his balance to head towards Silver. “Alright, I’m here..” He muttered.
Silver looked up in his usual excitement, grinning ear to ear. He eagerly skated back towards Shadow who tensed up, raising his arms to brace for the impact that never came. Instead, Silver stopped just in front of Shadow, holding out his hand for the other to take.
Shadow stared down at the hand, a look of unamused annoyance on his face that Silver couldn’t see. He glanced back over to Sonic, frowning at the thumbs up from the tired looking blue hedgehog. “Fine..” he took Silver’s hand, being lead further into the frozen lake.
“Here, I’ll help you!” Silver smiled at Shadow, skating along effortlessly somehow. It was probably something about his boots that allowed the other to skate without a problem, meanwhile Shadow was slipping every few minutes and freezing his paws off. He really regretted not having his rocket boots. Otherwise he could just fly above everything.
Instead he was out here on the ice with Silver, being pulled into spinning in a circle with said hedgehog, holding each others hand so neither ended up falling on the hard cold ice. It continued like that for awhile, just the two of them skating around on the ice in the frozen cave. It was quite, fun, Shadow almost decided to himself.
Of course it wouldn’t be able to go on like this forever, Sonic was still waiting for the both of them to be done. And speaking of Sonic, the hedgehog hadn’t made a sound in quite awhile. Had something happened to him? Shadow looked up from what he was doing with Silver, as quickly as he could skating back to where he had left Sonic.
With a small sigh of relief, the blue hedgehog was still in the spot he was left. Except the only difference was Sonic was now fast asleep, curled up in a ball and half buried in the snow. He had told Shadow about this before, called it ‘hibernation’. What a strange word.
With a soft grunt, Shadow picked up the ball of hedgehog and called back to Silver, letting him know that the fun was over. Silver of course wasn’t ready to go, but it only took the sight of Sonic being in a tight ball in Shadow’s arms that made the younger understand.
It was snowing by the time they were leaving, making it harder and longer than before to finally head home. It didn’t help that Shadow was now stuck carrying Sonic as well, which he didn’t mind too much. It wasn’t Sonic’s fault that they chose to stay out for so long, the blue hedgehog even mentioned getting tired.
Shadow should have noticed the signs, shouldn’t he? He was already informed of how these things went, so how come he chose to ignore it and hang out with Silver? For fun? Of course not.
—-
With a grunt, Shadow managed to shove open the snow-lodged door and walk inside the house with Silver trailing behind. The dark hedgehog placed Sonic down on the couch right in the middle, while the other went to place pillows and blankets for him.
Shadow sighed, watching as Silver helped the sleeping hedgehog, walking over to the dvd player on the TV. “So..Do you want to watch a movie?”
Silver looked up excitedly, nodding and heading over to help Shadow. Maybe having that excitable hedgehog around wasn’t so bad.