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Shifting his legs, Espio wriggles to try and adjust into a more comfortable position, his tail lifting and twining around Shadow’s ankle over his sock.
They’d been idly cuddling for about an hour now, shoulder to shoulder, leg to leg. Espio’s muzzle was tipped down to read a potential case off of his handheld tablet, free paw making short notes and annotations as Shadow sat against his side while disassociating with his eyes focused on the middle distance.
Truthfully, Espio had been alarmed the first time this had happened, but after researching to the best of his ability — turns out that Shadow was heavily against trying to talk to an actual therapist, something Espio and Amy had been trying to urge him towards (Espio ignored how hypocritical this made him seem, but alas) — it seems like this was good for him apparently. The ability to disassociate with someone watching him was supposedly good for Shadow’s mental health, at least in “controlled” settings.
Still somewhat vacant, Shadow’s own head falls against the side of his throat, his nose wet and cold on the soft scales of Espio’s throat. With his tablet pressed to the curve of his knee in a precarious balance, Espio was only barely aware of Shadow’s breathing changing a little, going from slow but shallow breaths to sudden, deep snuffles, his nose pressing closer to the space where Espio's crest meets the edge of his jaw.
Finally breaking his dissociative stillness, Shadow pushes closer to his neck, grunting and snuffling as if he can’t help it, only occasionally pulling his head back to brush along further parts of his crest. Fully thrown off by the sudden jump in activity, Espio drops his tablet and pen and presses his newly freed paws to the fluff of Shadow’s chest, laughter bubbling up in his chest. “Oh?” He hums, smiling to himself – Shadow didn’t really have the same libido that Espio did (and Espio’s libidio was already abysmal) so it was rare for him to initiate anything so boldly. His scales ripple with colour, slowly becoming brighter and more flashy, Espio himself shifting to slowly embrace Shadow in return as a cocky smirk pulls his lips back. “You’re awfully affectionate right n-hhgkn?!”
In one fell swoop, all of his cock and pomp vanishes, ripped away by his own, strangled little squeal, his shoulder trying to lift in defense of his softer neck scales — in spite of his wriggling, Shadow doesn’t pull away.
As a matter of fact, said hedgehog almost seems like he’s in a trance. Slowly becoming more active, Shadow pushes his, uncomfortably cold and wet, tongue against that same area he’d been nosing at earlier. Still twitching, and wriggling, Espio faintly notes that his tongue is strange, the surface weirdly rough for a hedgehog, and serpentine in shape — when Espio finally leans his weight back into the couch, a ticklish giggle escaping him, Shadow follows. His paws adjust against the back and arm-rest of the couch, leaning his considerable weight against Espio’s flank, his body lifting up onto his knees so that he could leverage his weight to get deeper against Espio’s throat. “Wh-WHat are you..? PFFFT! Shad-Shadow, m-my shade!”
Now he’s fully laughing with each pass, fingers twisted into the soft, downy fur of Shadow’s shoulders and arms. He’s wriggling and kicking out, his jaw trying to press down towards his collarbone with each nuzzle and nudge of Shadow’s frigid nose. Using his grip on that downy fur, even as he shakes and twitches with giggles, Espio carefully pulls. Shadow resists the steady pull for all but a second, eventually letting himself be pulled away with his tongue poking out from between his lips. Huffing and giggling and utterly breathless, Espio can’t fight the surprised snicker when he sees the way the hedgehog’s pupils have dilated to the point of appearing nearly black, half-lidded and eerily focused all the same, his ears held adorably askew.
“Shadow, wh-what on..?” Espio wheezes, wiping at the licked spot with the very tips of his fingers – the saliva that he comes away with is… strange. It’s not thin, like his own, but thick and weirdly… soapy? Foamy would be a better word, he figures, looking between the small amount of weird spit on his fingers and then at Shadow’s – still extended – tongue.
Like he’d assumed, the edge of Shadow’s tongue is split into two tines like a reptile, and he can see long, backwards curving textures along the length of the muscle. White fringed ears flick, that dull green tongue finally pulling back into his mouth, lips awkwardly smacking as though there were something unpleasant inside. Glancing from the froth on his fingers and then Shadow's baffled face, he carefully prods, “So… I’m assuming that wasn’t exactly something you were… expecting?”
“I, uh…” Shadow blinked, slow and confused and oddly sluggish — his strange, foggy state tickles some part of Espio’s mind, triggers some memory that’s lost when Shadow absently lifts a paw to hold Espio’s forearm. “I don’t think I know what I was doing..?”
Nodding slowly, Espio shifts his focus towards getting something to clean himself with, carefully sliding himself out from beneath Shadow’s partial pin – as though he’d been unaware of his own actions, Shadow grunts and scrambles to back off with a mumbled apology, though he’s waved off by a single paw. “Don’t worry about it, really.” Espio hums, his wrapped hind-paws making no sound as he hops to his feet. “Give me a moment.”
A damp dish-rag is retrieved from the kitchen, carefully drawn over the hollow of his throat where Shadow seemed so intent on practically licking the scales from. As he’s carefully cleaning, he can hear the soft hiss of socked paws over the carpet, and feel Shadow hovering at his back. When he looks over, the hedgehog has settled his face into a scowl, his ears still pinned back and his eyes locked on the rag as he wrings his gloved paws together.
“...are you upset?”
Espio blinks, rag stilling.
Was he upset? What on earth would he even-
Shadow’s ears flick and relax ever so slightly, his expression drifting from a scowl into something a little more anxious and Espio takes a slow breath.
Right, potentially abused, definitely undersocialized, incredibly emotionally sensitive, gotta remember that.
Turning to put his back against the countertop, Espio makes himself look less tense by relaxing his tail and softening his colours to a more muted shade of purple. When he speaks, he tries for a softer tone that’s free of condescension. “Shadow,” Black and red quills flare and twitch, a mix of reflex and some instinctive need to defend himself – Espio nearly laughs at the thought, because what the hell was he going to do to Shadow? Keeping the hedgehog’s tensed frame in view, Espio tips his head and shifts his own body so that he’s as far from the kitchen entrance as possible. “Why do you think I’d be upset?”
Shadow is quiet for a long moment.
The whole moment is weirdly surreal seeing as Shadow, the Shadow, was acting evasive and anxious in his kitchen after having just slobbered all over his damn neck. Scuffing the side of his socked hind paw, he peers up and locks eyes with Espio briefly, flicking further up to focus on the ridge of his brow. “I just…” His paws thump against each other, fingers curving so he can start tapping his claws anxiously. “Apologies, sorry it’s hard to…”
He shifts again, and then looks over his shoulder before looking back. “Remember the instincts talk?”
Espio blinks slowly. “I believe I remember that, yes.”
Did he remember it?
By Chaos he did – it had been one of the most awkward, humiliating, and almost invasive sit downs they’d collectively, yes they, had to experience at the time. Thanks to Shadow’s lack of interaction with other mobians, his complete lack of knowledge on his own biology and his upbringing and trauma with humans, he’d been doing a lot of courting displays and sounds that Espio obviously hadn’t recognized due to the difference in instincts between them. It had taken several rounds of Sonic loudly gagging, and telling them to, quote, “Get a damn room!” before Amy coaxed them into her living room to sit them down. She’d made them their favourite snacks, offered them a pleasant smile, and, while holding each of them by the paw, told them that Shadow was committing some serious PDA.
She’d even been polite enough to not laugh when they both flushed their respective colours.
Bless that damn hedgehog.
Shadow huffs, smoothing the quills of his forearm down with his paw, his eyes flicking down to Espio’s neck and then away. “I, uh, I think this is a… instinct thing?” Espio’s eyebrow raises in surprise, though he nods encouragingly. “I mean, it feels like an instinct thing at least, I’m sort of irrationally upset that you’re wiping your neck off? No, not upset just, well…”
Looking down at the rag in his paw, Espio tries to wrack his brain for a moment.
Amy, bless her bleeding little pink heart, had pulled him aside specifically to drop a few hedgehog factoids on him; from what he could remember, circling was the main one he’d seen from him. Shadow usually only did it when he was beyond physically exhausted, completely unable to stop himself from the endearing behavior, pacing around Espio with his eyes half-lidded and borderline asleep on his feet. He’d also heard some sillier sounds in more domestic settings, usually the sound of Shadow chirping whenever he saw Espio or Rouge, and very, very rarely, quacking when he was in that strange haze between wakefulness and the realm of nightmares, one red and black arm reaching for Espio as he trembled.
Nothing about licking came… immediately to his mind.
Shadow shifts, tongue swiping awkwardly at his lower lip, cleaning away somewhat foamy saliva from the corner of his mouth and Espio perks up.
“Hey, wait right here.”
He’s gone from the kitchen before Shadow can respond, though he doesn’t hear him following – to be fair, if Shadow really tried he wouldn’t hear him following anyways, that damn hedgehog could be distressingly quiet without those hover shoes of his. Espio prided himself on his stealth, and even he could admit Retrieving his phone from the living room table, he heads back while typing into the search bar, Shadow appearing in his peripheral with a tilted head and ears held askew in curiosity. Using one paw to urge him closer, Espio tilts his screen as he’s scrolling hurriedly. “Here, here, Amy directed me to this blog when we had that- oh.”
Shadow makes a gentle noise, his fur pleasantly cool where he leans on his shoulder. The article, “Self Anointing and Me” was fairly short, and mostly filled with speculation but Espio’s gaze was mostly focused on a specific paragraph, his scales flushing and heart fluttering embarrassingly in his chest. “The reason hedgehog mobians self-anoint is largely unknown – there are theories that it was once used as a self defense by coating their quills with poison or unpleasant smells but that’s another topic. Self-anointing has been proven to be a good self soothing mechanism for some mobians that have experienced trauma, basically utilizing this instinctive behaviour as a sort of aroma therapy!” He re-reads that, once, twice, and then a third time before looking back up at Shadow.
His eyes are still flicking over the article, but Espio knows that he’d read the right paragraph because his muzzle has tinted soft green and he’s not turning to look at Espio — he’s painfully, endearingly easy to read when he’s not in Agent mode.
Angling his phone back towards himself, Espio taps his claws over the side of his phone and then shifts his eyes to peer at him from his peripherals. “So…”
Shadow grunts, refusing to look back at him. “So.”
“Do you…” Espio shifts, flexes his paw, and then begins to fiddle with his wrist bracers. Being careful of the many yellow smoke-bombs lining the very edge of the metal, he sets the two hunks of metal aside and then offers his wrist — specifically, he offers his inner forearm where he knows he applied his scale oil the heaviest. “Do you feel like finishing?” Shadow’s eyes snap down to the offered limb, and then back up, his ears lifted and eyes just a little wider. His paws flex at his sides, lifting and then lowering like he wasn’t sure if he was truly allowed; Espio’s eyes roll, his mouth slanted in a wry smirk. “This isn’t a trick question, my shade. This? This is the least “weird” instinct I’ve been around — it took me and Vector ages to figure out why Charmy would burrow under his bed, and even Vector’s habit of carrying Charmy in his jaws.”
When he doesn’t move beyond an unsure flick of his tail, Espio shrugs and drops his arm. “The offer is always available whenever you’re ready,” he throws over his shoulder as he walks past, carefully keeping his eyes off of Shadow as he goes. “But I’m going to sit back down and finish my casework so I can go to bed early tonight.”
Shadow doesn’t move.
Even as Espio slinks past, sits down on the couch, stalls by making himself overly comfortable and finally pretends to start focusing on his work, he doesn’t hear Shadow move for a concerningly long time — when he strains his ears, he can faintly hear the slow rasp of his breathing and the near silent rattle of his quills as they move, but he doesn’t leave the kitchen.
Espio sighs softly, begrudgingly actually shifting his focus onto his casework, shifting to lean over the coffee table.
That was alright, that was fine, Shadow wasn’t used to having an instinct crash like that. Hell, Espio could sympathize a little; when he’d been a hatchling, he’d had his own fair share of crashes, especially with someone as massive as Vector raising him.
Perks of being a species predisposed to anxiety, he supposed.
His pen scratches over physical paper — Charmy tried time and time again to get him to take notes directly on his handheld using a “stylus” but he didn’t like the strangely smooth glide — eyes flicking from lines of addresses, identities of mobians of interest and a few IP addresses.
It happens right as he’s writing down a potential link between a blond bulldog and bouncy monkey mobian; the careful, slow depression of the couch beside him makes his pen pause, fur brushing his lower back and paws carefully coming to rest on his shoulder.
Fighting to keep himself nonchalant — he’s not, he’s so not nonchalant, he’s so damned excited that Shadow’s trying — Espio tilts his muzzle down. The downward swoops of his crest lift to offer up the same stretch of scales that Shadow’d been so intent on getting at, the paw on his right-most shoulder squeezing briefly. Keeping the air of normalcy, Espio taps the butt-end of his pen to the paper, tilting his tablet for Shadow to see. “This case is suspected arson,” He hums, shifting his crossed legs so that he can readjust his notebook onto his knee. “We have 5 alive victims, several dozen burn victims, and at least one confirmed casualty so far, but our suspects? Nothing.”
“Mh…” Shadow shifts, his muzzles resting over the curve of his shoulder to read in silence before his other paw reaches over to point at the screen. “You have the boar circled?”
“Mmhm.” Fiddling, Espio brings up a more clear image of the boar – an older gentleman, the boar was grey-brown with the fur atop his skull slicked back and streaked through with grey hairs. “He’s the circus’ “Wildling” and is supposedly a good tracker. When I brought it up to Vector, we both found it suspicious that he reported no new scents, potentially suggesting a nose blindness-”
Shadow finishes the thought for him, his head moving in a nod. “-which would naturally mean that a potential suspect would have to be someone within the circus itself.”
“That was my first thought,” He flicks through the images, pulling up the visages of a butterfly, a monkey, a lemur, and a spider in addition to the older boar. “Five mobians walking away, unscathed, from a fire that caused severe burns to dozens of others?”
“Untouched? That spider -”
“Cyborg, injuries unrelated to this fire.”
“The lemur?”
“Cleft lip from birth, missing fingers from previous incidents.”
“Mm.”
Taking the soft grunt for the ‘I’m-done-talking-now’ that it was, Espio sinks back into his work – that had been the plan, for a moment at least. As he started scratching down another date and location to look at later, there was the soft touch of a cold nose to his still exposed neck. Shadow flinches back when he twitches in surprise, slowly relaxing when Espio doesn’t do much more than offer a soft apology and mess with his screen some more.
Truthfully, Espio didn’t see a damn thing he was swiping through.
The fur of Shadow’s muzzle was satin-soft on his scales as he shifted back and forth, the muscles of his jaw flexing and jumping with his obvious indecision. Fully giving up on his facade of “working”, Espio tips his muzzle down to fully open up the back of his neck – for a moment, he mentally laughs at how ridiculous they must look, two grown mobians awkwardly squished onto a too small couch, indulging in instinct crashes.
And then Shadow’s maw finally opens.
Cooler than even Espio’s scales, Shadow’s barbed tongue carefully drew itself over his shoulder, notably opposite of where he’d been licking earlier. There’s the faintest brush of his, almost comedically large, fangs with each pass though he’s very, very careful to not bite and he can feel the hedgehog’s saliva get steadily foamier. Admittedly a little grossed out, Espio hums softly, awkwardly reaching back to pat at the knee closest to him – immediately, Shadow’s weight pitches forwards.
Once again, the chameleon finds himself in an awkward, partial pin, his breath coming a little shorter and a bit wheezy. Something about Shadow’s genetic makeup made him denser than the average mobian, and when his built muscle and natural fat was added on top of that, it made him a proverbial boulder on Espio’s poor spine. With one paw braced above them, surely the only reason Espio was able to actually breathe, Shadow starts nosing further down his arm – like earlier, he’s making a soft, exploratory grunting/snuffling sound as he goes, occasionally breaking the string of sounds to hiss.
“Okay, okay, lemme just-” Having a pretty good idea what Shadow was trying for, Espio starts pushing at one shoulder and awkwardly wriggling to lay down flat on the couch. Shadow buzzes, that same, strange and alien anatomy making him incapable of the usual hedgehog hissing to show his disgruntlement at being dislodged and Espio snorts. “Oh, hush,” he chastizes, unfazed by Shadow’s grump and grumble, awkwardly shrugging his shoulder to get that foamy feeling off. “I’m trying to make this easier on both of us here.”
Still deep in his own instinct crash, Shadow just blinks and buzzes at Espio’s tone, his ears angling back; he does settle back on his heels though, idly licking his foam onto the back of his own forearms, and letting Espio carefully wriggle down into a position comfortable for his back spines and tail. When he’s settled, Espio offers his arm, the same one from earlier and the same one Shadow’s been clearly sniffing down towards. “Come on,” He gently urges. “Let’s see if this helps at all.”
While his consent is welcomed, it seems to be mostly unneeded in Shadow’s crashed mind; the moment Espio’s wrist lifts to his nose, his paws have snatched his wrist and leveraged him close. He snuffles along the soft, velvety scales of his inner wrist, Espio being forced to fight back ticklish snickers.
Listen, breaking into laughter once today already felt like one time too many, okay?
He doesn’t stop his scales from rippling with yellow spirals though.
Sue him, he was happy.
Shadow’s black nose is cold when he buries it into the crook of Espio’s elbow, the tanned fur of his muzzled rubbing and sticking up in all directions from his fierce nuzzling. With one more pass, he seems happy with starting to lick just above the edge of Espio’s glove, tongue leaving his skin at about the mid-point of his forearm. With some foamy saliva still lingering from lapping at his neck, it doesn’t take more than a few passes for him to start foaming more heavily — he pulls back to flick and shake his free paw, stubbornly wrestling his glove off.
“Sh-Shadow!” Espio squeaks, quickly flicking his eyes towards the ceiling. “You have to warn a man before you just whip out your paws!”
A grunt and the weird, frothy sound of him licking at his paw (presumably?) is Shadow’s only “reply”. Squinting with a slightly grossed out grimace, Espio peaks down to find Shadow carefully running his foam laden paw over what quills he could reach on his head and shoulders while sitting on Espio’s legs. His own nose twitches a few times — honestly, even with Shadow practically lathering himself in spit, he can’t smell anything. Clearly Shadow can, especially when he moves on to Espio’s other arm rather than continue on the arm that he’d started on.
“I know I said this wasn’t weird,” Espio begins, his already licked arm absently moving to pet over the upwards curve of Shadow’s shoulder quill bundles, a bit of laughter in his tone. “But I think I forgot that you’re a mammal, and my family is decidedly not mammalian.”
Black and red quills flare into his touch, Shadow pausing to grab the offending paw. “Shit, sorry did I-” His glove is fiddled with, his paw curling into a reactive fist immediately. His ensuing yelp seems to startle the hedgehog, Shadow — with foam still clinging to his lips — releasing him and lifting his paw away though his eyes are thinned in confusion. “Woah! Woah, woah, no, uh hey there. Glove stays on, okay?”
When all he gets is a blank, somewhat lost stare, Espio offers the flat of his palm. Shadow’s bare claws brush his wrist scales, the very tips of them creeping beneath the edge of his glove and he quickly closes his palm again. Red eyes find gold, Shadow’s instinct riddled and very sluggish brain very clearly working through Espio’s actions; luckily, when Espio flattens his paw again, it seems that, much like when he’d shoved him off earlier, enough of his rational mind was intact that he didn’t try to remove his glove again. Instead, he starts licking at the fabric, practically depositing the foam in his mouth onto Espio’s palm.
When he’s seemingly done what he’d set out to do with this… weird… action, Shadow draws that paw over his back and into his shoulder quills — his “shark fins” he’d heard Amy giggle more than once. More than a little lost, Espio’s paw stays still, the foam soaking uncomfortably into his glove. When Shadow shifts to start licking the remainder of the foam into his paws, he also flares the sharp points outwards to expose the skin between, arching very obviously into his stationary palm.
Oh!
“Oh, I see,” He mumbles, repeating his earlier petting. Shadow starts up a thunderous, clicky growl, his quills rattling with his full body shiver. Spreading his fingers to evenly distribute the foam through his quills, Espio continues to ramble, oddly thrown by the silence. “You’re kind of… well, cute like this, y’know? I’d usually describe you more in the realm of handsome, or attractive, but all the purring and touching. Ha, I think this is the longest you’ve let me touch any of your quills.”
Shadow shifts, his quills abruptly smoothing; Espio has to yank his paw out of them before he can accidentally stab himself on one, his noise of complaint choked off by his lover going limp atop him.
Once more, he finds himself squished into the couch by Shadow’s significant weight, a cold nose pressed to his jugular and (ungloved) paws pressed to his chest. Wheezing a little, Espio winds his arms under the curve of his quills, tilting his muzzle to peer at the back-pin of Shadow’s eartips. “…Shadow?”
A low buzz thrums through the air, his massive claws digging just barely into Espio’s chest. “This is humiliating, I do hope that you know that.”
Relaxing, Espio can’t help his own laughter. “Welcome to the life of the average mobian, we call those instinct crashes.”
With a long, gravelly sigh, Shadow leans back up onto his haunches — he seems to realize his lack of gloves just before lifting them into Espio’s sightline, quickly leaning over to look for his gloves on the floor. Only partially focused on that, he begins to complain. “And here I thought I’d be happy to be “normal” for once. “Crashing”, is that something that could-“ He grunts, nearly wobbling straight off the couch before finally sitting back up with his gloves settled in place. “Sorry. Is crashing something that will get less… like that?”
Sliding his paws down from Shadow’s lower back and onto his thighs – still straddling Espio’s damn legs, mind you – Espio taps his claws a few times. “In theory, yes?” Shadow’s thighs twitch when he drags his claws down, the hedgehog grunting an apology and taking his weight onto his knees; pins and needles sting Espio’s legs, his paw patting at Shadow’s hip even as his face wrinkles in mild pain. “Thank you, shade. Anyways, if I had to hazard a guess, it hit you this hard because you’ve never had to go through it before.”
“Mn.” Espio watches Shadow’s snout wrinkle a bit, arms lifting to his shiny black nose which twitches. His face shifts through a variety of emotions as he sniffs along his quills, stopping directly over his red stripe where he’d spent the most time depositing his strange, foamy spit – Espio smiles when he peaks over, his ears flicking rapidly. “It’s… Is it strange if I say that I… I like how this-” His arm bounces. “-smells? It should be weird, right?”
“Shadow, you watched me eat part of my shed two months ago.” Espio’s voice is flat, the long coil of his tail coming up to wind over Shadow’s much shorter – for now, Tails having pointed out that it seemed to be growing – tail. “You didn’t say a damn thing the first time I had a crash and ate a mosquito in front of you, you didn’t say a damn thing when I moved my eyes independently of one another, and you didn’t say a damn – okay no, you did tease me when my scales went all bright and flashy but even then, you didn’t drag it out.”
Pushing himself up so that he was mostly on level, Espio cups Shadow’s chin in one palm, using the other to pull him in until they are as close as Espio’s central horn would allow. “Shadow Maria Robotnik, Shadow the Hedgehog, Shadow, do you truly think so little of me? Do you truly think that after everything, everything, I’d mock you for something as small as your instincts? If I didn’t know you as well as I do, I would hit you right now.” Throughout his rant, Shadow’s eyes have gotten progressively more dilated and vibrant, a thin ring of orange and yellow circling his massive pupils – his smile is hard to bite down at the feeling of Shadow’s tail wagging a mile a minute against his own. “And to answer you: No. No I do not think you anointing is “weird”... at least no more weird than the wings and the claws and the fangs.”
Pupils still massive and his iris’ still dimly pulsing with… something not quite Mobian nor Chaos in origin, Shadow flicks his eyes off to the side and starts to snicker. “ “No more weird” huh?” Espio’s face heats just a tad, the scales of his cheeks and the bridge of his nose flushing yellow and pink – eyes flicking back to his own, Shadow’s face relaxes into his usual, cocky smirk. “Funny, because I swear that those same things get you hot and b-”
“O-KAY!” Espio yelps, wrenching his face back and clapping his paw over Shadow’s laughing mouth. “You..! You are a menace! See if I comfort you again, you absolute-”
His breath catches.
Still laughing, still smiling, his body shaking with a happy growl, Shadow pulls Espio close again and carefully slotting their mouths together. His growl never ceases, the low, clicky buzz traveling between them like electricity across a live circuit, his scales rippling with colour at the soft press of oversized fangs to his lower lip. He gasps faintly when those proverbial daggers close against his lips in a gentle nip, his breath chased back into his throat by the length of Shadow’s tongue – he tries really, really hard to muffle his whine when his mouth is briefly freed.
Judging by the rough, clicky laugh that Shadow lets out and the way his own throat aches, he thinks he fails just a tad.
When they part, it’s entirely for Espio’s benefit seeing that Shadow has a stupidly high lung capacity – he’s gasping a little, wheezing ever so slightly and too dumfounded to protest Shadow finally dismounting from his lap, his tail slipping from Espio’s grasp with a deft little flick. He starts sniffing at his arms and wrists again, his quills flaring out in full and then all smoothing tight to his body; it slims his entire frame down and makes his muscles stand out even on the dark backdrop of his fur.
Glancing over his shoulder, Shadow mouth quirks to the side. “Come on, my dear tulip.” Espio refuses to acknowledge the way his scales flash in brilliant spirals of yellow, staggering to his own feet to follow the tip of Shadow’s head. “You wanted to go to bed early tonight, remember?”
Well…
Technically being asleep by 3 AM the next morning was “early”... In some aspects at least.