Tryin' something out, guys.

Please don't kill me.

/duck

It's boy/boy romance (only rated T, tho). So don't panic.

Sonadow

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He was stupid, brash, and hyperactive.

He was an annoying, arrogant bastard.

So why do I suddenly want to be around him?

It started out small, like wanting to go running with the idiot more often, like choosing to stay with him when I normally would have been too pissed off to stay.

Then, it got more confusing. I'd lay in bed, staring at the ceiling and wanting to burn holes in it with my gaze. Thinking about him. And then watching him when I'm actually around him. Watching the carefree gaze as he stares into the sky. Watching how the breeze ruffles his quills so they twist around one another, only to separate and repeat the process.

And right now, I'm standing here, arms resting in the familiar crossed posed, listening and thinking of him. I'm standing here on this hill, in this godforsaken cold under the annoying moonlight.

I can't stand the imbecile! Why, then? Why...

Why am I thinking about him?

"Hey, Shadow!"

I feel my ears pin down, flattened against my quills. I hear my own breathing catch. My arms uncross, my fingers clench.

And I know why.

He skids to a halt next to me, his breathing only slightly altered by the run. I flick my eyes towards him, only daring to look at him out of my peripheral vision, lest I stare.

Lest I give myself away.

"Hey, why are you out here in the middle of the night, bud?"

I raise a brow an infintessimal amount. 'Bud'?

I pause a moment, considering my answer. "Thinking, 'Faker'."

He doesn't answer, but nods nearly imperceptibly and looks up at the sky himself.

"Hey, do you see that?" He asks, pointing at some random object in the blackness.

"See what, exactly?" I say monotonously.

"That group of stars," he explains. "The five shaped like a big 'W'."

I scan the sky. "Yes," I say finally.

"Look between the third and fourth star. See the one that's all faded?"

I narrow my eyes. "Yes."

"That's Andromeda. The next galaxy closest to us," he says, and I hear something creep into his voice. A sense of longing, perhaps.

I knew that tone because I had lived it most of my life. All for...

I mentally jostle myself out of that thought. She needed to be put away, put to rest.

I say nothing, and he is content just to stand silently. After a few moments, he sits down on the hilltop with a sigh. I don't follow; I choose not to follow someone's example simply because it is set--but that is not what was going through my mind at that moment. It was an automatic thing for me, to be different.

We stayed there for what seemed like hours.

I ponder my realization and rethink it. Am I really... in love with the Faker?

Yes, I decide.

It was... he has a certain quality about him that really draws me to him.

Perhaps it was the fact that I am designed to be like him (though I am decidedly NOT). Perhaps it was the strong sense of justice he possessed that I didn't. Maybe it was the overwhelming light emanating from him.

Whatever it was, I wanted it. I wanted to be with him, to have him be the opposite side of me. He was the match to my darkness. He made me think. He knew my moods. He knew how to pull me back into reason and out of my self-made black holes.

"Shadow?"

I say nothing.

"I... need to tell you something." He suddenly looks fidgety, and his brows knit over those glassy green depths. "I...don't think I like Amy."

"I didn't think you ever liked her," I snort.

Sonic looked at Andromeda and scowled; not in annoyance, but in deep thought. "Maybe...that's true..." He sighs. "Shadow...you're my friend, aren't you?"

I smirk and open my mouth to say something bitter, but then he looks at me, and the blue and green are innocent and everything good and light. I shut my mouth, and then berate myself for performing such a cliche action.

"I guess," I say, and tear my eyes away.

He seems satisfied with that answer and pauses before speaking again.

"So...if I told you something important, you wouldn't, yanno, freak?"

I almost chuckle at his choice of words. Honestly, he sounded like one of those surfer wannabes. "...No."

He sighes again, and I can hear the tension. "Shadow... I think I--I mean, I wanna say... no, I just..."

I look at him pointedly. He raises his palms and nods in understanding.

"I think I'm gay," he blurts, and his face is red and flushed with shame. "I just...needed to tell someone, and for some reason, I felt like I should tell you."

I am shocked, but I do not show it; perhaps I should be honored by his choice in confidantes.

"And...?"

His eyes train on me and widen. "What do you mean, 'and?' You're not...freaked out?"

I meet his gaze steadily. "No. I don't discriminate between any kind of romantic relationship. I don't really care."

And I don't. I've never thought of a homosexual relationship as different in any way than that of a heterosexual relationship. It was merely preference of the individual.

I look back up at the stars. "I am the same," I say, and I hold my breath, waiting for his reaction.

He looks confused. "What about...?" He doesn't finish, possibly out of courtesy for me.

"Maria...is of no consequence to me anymore," I say stoically. "She is dead. I moved on." That's not entirely true, says my brain. You do good because of her.

"Oh." He fiddles with his fingers and looks down at them, seemingly fascinated by their movements. "How did you...know?" He asks me, still not looking up.

I decide...honesty. It was not my way to dance around subjects. I look at him. "Since I met you."

Sonic's head snapped up, ears perked and quills bouncing. "Since...?"

"I met you, yes."

"So...then...you...wanted...be..." He stammers, pupils dilating and breath quickening, as if he'd run seven hundred marathons.

"Yes."

His mouth gapes open and he just stares like that for a while.

I turn back to the sky. So does he after some time.

"...Me too."

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A little experiment and an exercise for writer's block!

I know, I know, you guys want my Naruto fic updated...

Review or Simba will eat your first-born children!