A/N: I'm so sick and tires of seeing so much OOC sonadow, so I decided to write my own. I'm really disgusted with the sonic fandom. Its irritatingly OOC and I don't even think its possible to count up to the number of mary sues I've seen around. So please people, for the sake of the fandom, grow some brain cells and cut the crap.

"faker"

By Gedatsu-kitteh

"Hey there, Faker."

He used to think they had absolutely nothing in common; always at odds with each other; born from opposite sides of the equation. Their paths had been so different; experiences molding them into the stubborn hedgehogs they were. They could never understand each other. It was just against the laws of nature.

Shadow. What a befitting name that had turned out to be. It seemed now, that every aspect of his life had become just that: one big empty shadow. He was a ghost of something that had long since gone; and he had been left chasing nothing but fleeting memories slowly dissipating into the wind. He clung to those memories; he clung to them like they were his only source of air drowning in a sea of confusion.

He hated them. They played over and over in his head like some psychotic form of sadistic torture. He was on the brink of tears, but pride refused to let them fall. He told himself that he was a failure; he could have saved her; he let her die. He felt the sharp pain in his chest and the constriction of his lungs. By then he remembers this pain he feels may not even be his own. He could be a copy; an imposter; a fake.

"Hey there, Faker."

Oh but he was faking too. Sometimes he could see right through those heavily guarded emerald almonds, and it scared him. He didn't want to think of that blue hedgehog as anything more than a cocky bastard; your typical naïve, heart of gold hero. He didn't want to believe Sonic could be anything like himself: flawed, confused, fearful, and lonely. So… so… lonely. But there was a reason he was lonely. A good reason. He was never deeply attached to anyone. Not even Rouge. Not since… Maria. He would never go through such agony again; he would not lose someone close to him again; he would not be hurt anymore; he was tired of hurting… so tired…

But that Faker… he had no right to feel alone when constantly surrounded by friends; and yet Shadow could see it, if only for a moment, plain as day, how detached he was from everyone else. He was hiding something under that inflated ego; something that made Shadow's insides to jelly; made his heart stop: he was alone. So utterly isolated in his own little world. The more Shadow noticed it, the easier it was to see how fake his social interactions were; how desperate he was to cover the truth.

It made him sick knowing he could feel any sort of empathy toward that bastard. It made him sick because he felt he had some sort of obligation; an attachment. What made it all the worse was that in those small moments of understanding he could see… that blue hedgehog was well aware of Shadow's own loneliness. Those roots of understanding grew deep between them; deeper than Shadow's and Maria's had ever been, and that sacred him.

"Hey there, Faker."

Their encounters were different now. Their usual pointless banter was now weighed down with some sort of invisible coded message; a message only the two could decipher. Those flames of pent up frustration and rivalry were fed through those brief scuffles; adrenaline and passion twisting their unusual relationship of middle ground somewhere between enemies and friends, into something much more sinister.

They'd let happen what they had promised never would; they'd let themselves get attached too deeply, and now it had turned into an unhealthy obsession. They needed it; craved those moments where both knew they could be understood, that somewhere out there someone else knew exactly what they were going through.

They both wanted to say it. It was always on the tip of their tongues… but it was such an intimate thing to say; a field where both had little experience. And they were afraid of what would happen after. They were afraid of change; afraid of leaving this safe ground, of leaving security. So instead they both said what they knew was safe, what they knew was familiar:

"Hey there, Faker."

End.

A/N: ehhh... not my best. Needs some editing to make the first half stronger I think. Constructive crit plz.