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“We like to drink with Knuckles, ‘cos Knuckles is our mate! And when we drink with Knuckles, he gets it down in 8!
7!
6!
5!
4!
3!
2!
1!”
Shadow hadn’t intended to stay at this party for longer than the two seconds it would take to steal his hoodie back from Sonic, but he’d already broken that self-imposed time limit just to watch Knuckles contort his face in disgust while raucous cheers and laughter filled the packed room. He hadn’t actually spotted Sonic until now, but there he was, to Knuckles’ right and cackling like a loon. Knuckles crushed his empty cup against the side of Sonic’s head, which just sent him into further hysteria. Meanwhile, Amy was busy literally standing on her low coffee table, refilling a huge number of plastic cups of cider. Rouge was also pouring drinks, but she’d retrieved a new cup and seemed to be attempting to mix as many different drinks into it as possible. Various other people were crowded around the coffee table on the floor in various states of intoxication. All in all, a rowdy and uncomfortable scene that Shadow wanted to escape as soon as possible.
“Hey! Shadow! We’re playing rage cage, wanna join in?” Sonic’s chipper voice reached over the crowd.
“Fine,” said Shadow, taking the blue hedgehog’s proffered hand and using it to safely vault the coffee table while only slightly kicking Silver in the head. Silver seemed either tired or drunk enough not to care particularly much, simply giving Shadow a sleepy wave. He situated himself neatly between Sonic and Knuckles. “What is this game you speak of?”
Sonic gave a Cheshire Cat-esque grin. “OK, so basically, two people in the circle have empty cups and ping pong balls. You have to bounce the ball into the cup, and once you do that you pass your cup to the left. If one cup catches up to the other, you stack the cups and then the person who got caught has to drink and add that cup to their stack.”
“Seems simple enough.”
“Sure, but here’s the kicker. If you get it in first try, you can pass the cup wherever you want. So you can save someone, or intentionally make someone drink!” Sonic looked overly proud of his little strategy. “Oh - and that cup Rouge has is called the King Cup, it’s the one you leave ‘til last.”
Speak of the devil - Rouge was clambering over with said King Cup, which contained some unholy mixture of cider, beer and whatever spirits she could find. She delicately plonked herself on top of Knuckles, who had tapped out for the next game, and deposited the cup in the middle of the table.
“Seems simple enough.” Shadow mirrored Sonic’s smirk. Looks like this, like everything between the two rivals, would turn into a competition.
Amy was clearly a few drinks deep, and grabbed the whole group’s attention easily with a piercing “SHUT UP!”
The race was on. 3, 2, 1…
It was truly a battle for the ages. Silver and Rouge started from opposite sides of the table, and by the time Silver finally got his shot in, the ball had almost already caught up with him. Thankfully, the next few were Amy, Espio, Sonic and Shadow, so they were able to make a sneaky escape. Blaze decided to try to help Silver from that point on, but seemed to be making things worse, much to the rest of the circle’s joy. Nevertheless, the two cups were close together at all times, which meant Sonic was able to sabotage Shadow for the first drink of the round.
At some point, Amy had screeched across the table to Shadow, “He’s been doing this all night! He’s too good to miss a shot and he keeps -” she paused to yell incoherently about missing her shot “- he keeps makin’ the rest of us drink!” Sonic managed it a few times after that as well - Shadow had lied when he said alcohol didn’t affect him - but the overall loser was Rouge, who got caught after the latest of Sonic’s failed sabotage attempts gave Shadow a fighting chance to stack her. And Rouge being Rouge, she didn’t hesitate to be dramatic about it.
“Betrayal! Betrayed by my own brother!” She fell dramatically across the table, forcing Amy to catch her. “Alas, I am resigned to my fate…”
And then, with a perfectly straight face, she chugged the King Cup while maintaining direct eye contact with Shadow.
She didn’t even wait for a countdown.
Shadow had never felt more threatened in his life.
Nervous applause filled the room as the group reshuffled for the next round, and all of a sudden a lightbulb went off in Shadow’s head. A very small, flickery, ill-advised lightbulb that was almost definitely the result of an embarrassingly low tolerance.
“Sonic, let’s swap.”
Sonic glanced up at him from where he had been distracted by a weirdly shaped stain on the floor. “Huh? Oh, you want a chance at getting me drunk? Heh, good luck, all you’ve done is doomed Rouge.”
Shadow didn’t feel particularly bad about this, because Rouge seemed to enjoy being doomed, especially while sat on Knuckles’ lap. Instead, he managed to squidge himself past Sonic into the space next to Espio, who greeted him with a nod and the wordless warrior’s pact that Sonic was the true target here. Shadow would be safe-ish for the next round.
Speaking of, it was about to begin. With the customary countdown, the game was off and Shadow’s plan fell into place.
The cups were chasing each other closely pretty soon, and Shadow took every chance he had to stack Sonic, of course. He wasn’t quite fast enough for the blue blur. But that was fine. That was part of the plan. Because every time he missed, Shadow used the quick action to disguise himself shifting a little closer to Sonic. Leaning his weight on his shoulder. Brushing their hands together. He could feel Sonic’s cheeks heating up just by the proximity, and Shadow grinned catlike as he watched his rival fumble.
But it wasn’t happening fast enough - the King Cup was the only remaining drink, and Sonic was nowhere near flustered enough to make a huge mistake. Shadow was going to have to do something drastic. So, as the room chanted “rage cage! Rage cage!” and the cups fell into place…
Shadow grabbed Sonic’s face and planted a kiss on his lips.
The room fell silent as they pulled away. Sonic was so red he was practically glowing, and Shadow somehow had the presence of mind to realise he didn’t seem upset - more curious, maybe even… happy?
Shadow stacked his cup in Sonic’s and chaos controlled outside.
He could hear the thunderous screeching and applause through the closed window. It was freezing cold outside, but his furious blush kept him warm. Why on Earth did he think that was a good idea? He could blame it on the drinks, sure, but Sonic knew. He always did. He grabbed his skates and tried desperately to wedge them back onto his feet, cursing himself for not just grabbing that hoodie and running - which he forgot, by the way, how did he possibly forget - and totally missed a commotion upstairs, a thudding from inside the house, and before he knew it his feet had been knocked from under him. In a panic he grabbed hold of his assailant, but it finally registered that there were lips on his - he was being dipped.
Sonic stood him back up gently, with a giddy grin on his face, as someone wolf whistled out of the window which had been wedged open in the interim. Smatterings of encouragement fell out into the night. Sonic was giggling again, and all Shadow could do was hug him.
“So like, are we a thing now?” he managed between chuckles. Shadow’s response was muffled in his own hoodie, but the fact that he didn’t let go was answer enough for Sonic. They wouldn’t be going back in to the party for a while, that much was for sure.