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The backstory behind Shadow's eyeliner:
Shadow sighs. He really wasn't particularly keen on sharing stories from his past, but he supposes it's time to allow himself to share more of himself with others. This could be an alright start with that. "Fine. I guess I'll tell you." Sonic gives him a small smile at that. Shadow tries not to think about the reaction he feels in his stomach seeing it, and decides to tell the story.
Before reading - I guess this is set in a little au that I'm still trying to figure out. (Because this was originally intended to be a scene in a longer fic I'm planning to write)
So for now, this is set in Shadow's room, after him and Sonic started to get to know eachother more after working out a tense rivalry.
(I apologise for any poor spelling here, English isn't my first language and I didn't put too much effort into this one)
(Also I think this can also be red as them being casual friends, too)
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"Wait- Shads... is that blood?! Are you bleeding?" Sonic frantically asked, as he pointed towards Shadow's eyes, there was a red smear of... something, just above them.
"What? Oh. That's just my eyeliner. It probably smeared." Shadow shrugged, with annoyance in his voice. He hated whenever that happened.
Sonic's expression changed to a surprised one. "That's eyeliner?! Huh, I had always thought it was just like, the colour of your fur. But now that I do take a good look at it... it is a bit shiny... indeed kinda different from the red in your quills." Sonic tilted his head sideways, inspecting the red lines around his eyes.
"Hah. Well, I guess it's just not that noticeable." Shadow stated, tearing his eyes away from Sonic's blown open eyes and raised eyebrows. He tried to ignore the way he still felt his gaze on him.
"Why do you wear it, though?" Sonic tilted his head to the side.
Apparently, Shadow made a face at that question because Sonic immediately starts rapidly apologising. "No- I mean like... It's not like I think it doesn't suit you- In my honest opinion it even looks good on you- uhm..." Sonic swallowed. "And I don't mean that you're like- that it's stupid, or something. It's just-"
"It's fine, Sonic." Shadow cuts off his rapid rambling. Sonic shuts his mouth and looks attentively at him, as if waiting for Shadow to continue.
The black hedgehog sighs. He really wasn't particularly keen on sharing stories from his past, but he supposes it's time to allow himself to share more of himself with others. This could be an alright start with that. "Fine. I guess I'll tell you." Sonic gives him a small smile at that. Shadow tries not to think about the reaction he feels in his stomach seeing it, and decides to tell the story.
"Whenever Maria got ready for school, or special events, or anything, really. I would always accompany her in anything she did. Through almost all the steps of her routine, I would be by her side, just... watching. We didn't necessarily have to talk or anything, I would just be there, be present. It was comforting." Shadow brings his gaze up from where they previously rested on his shoes, to meet Sonic's eyes. He sees that Sonic has a unique expression on his face, like he's actually interested in what he's telling him.
Shadow then remembers he still needed to continue. "But anyways- that's besides the point." He brings his gaze elsewhere. "She would usually do her makeup at the bathroom sink. She usually didn't do much... she often just did something basic, for things such as school. But for parties or special events, she would use some extra products. I would always just watch attentively at whatever she was applying to her face. The first time I saw her do a more... complicated look, I was a bit confused when she started tracing her eyeline with some red pencil. It seemed she noticed my puzzled face and chuckled at it. She then asked me if I wanted to try some. And because I liked being included, I agreed to it... It felt funny feeling the rather cold liquid of the eyeliner seeping through my fur. After she was done, I looked in the mirror and inspected the finished product. It wasn't bad... I quite liked the look of it, actually."
Shadow looked around the room, not daring to make eye contact with Sonic, for some reason.
"As I was inspecting the newly drawn lines around my eyes, she giggled and said that it suited me. So, whenever she would do her eyeliner, she would also put it on me. After every time, I would look in the mirror and notice she improved her skills with it again, the lines being done more neatly each time. She eventually even taught me how to do it myself. I didn't wear it often back then, when she was still..." Shadow trailed off, not wanting to say the thing he hated most, the thing that brought him the most pain.
In his peripheral vision, he saw Sonic nod and turn his head a tad to the side in understanding. Shadow swallowed and looked up at him again. "And well, after I lost her, I found some red eyeliner in a drug store and took it with me. I still remembered how to apply it. When I first saw myself with that same eyeliner again, it brought me back to all the times I sat on that cold kitchen sink with her." He let out a soft chuckle to himself. "Well... I haven't stopped wearing it since, as you can tell."
"Hm. She's right, it does look neat on you. Even if it didn't look as profesional back then." Sonic quirked a smile.
"Right, thanks." Shadow replied dryly.
...
"Could I try it?"
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Thank you so much for reading, I really hope you enjoyed it ;)
You can find the beautiful art that heavily inspired me to write this here!