Take My Breath Away
NSFW, feat. Sonic and Shadow

    The pair of anthropomorphic hedgehogs trotted along, their shoes clinking on the metallic walkway, one colored blue and amused, the other colored black and red and irritable. Through tempered glass that striped the floor, the planet Mobius could be seen spinning, glowing with the reflected light of the daylight sun like a magnificent blue bulb. Clouds and weather systems spiraled over its surface like milk in water. The two creatures took no notice of the spectacular sight though, too focused on one another. The blue one had his arms behind his head, tucked into his weighty, spiky spines while the black one was making every effort to pretend to ignore what the blue one was saying.
    This blue hedgehog was named Sonic and the one with darker, red-tipped spines was his rival, Shadow. The pair were exchanging their usual, competitive, and vaguely flirtatious banter as they went along.
    Then, suddenly Sonic grabbed Shadow by the arm.
    “Hey Faker, is the air getting thin in here or is it just me?” he asked. Sonic did sound like he was having trouble breathing; he was drawing deep breaths as if winded. Shadow felt his lungs struggling a little too, although his Black Arms hybrid DNA from the gene-splicing experiments that had created him probably made him much more resilient up here in orbit on the city-like space station ARK.
    Swiftly, Shadow crossed over to the wall of the walkway where an illuminated panel showed the artificial atmosphere monitor. The black hedgehog’s red eyes widened as they roved over the rapidly scrolling data.
    “We’re depressurizing; something’s gone wrong with the ARK mainframe,” Shadow said seriously, all sense of humor and friendliness gone, although there hadn’t been much in him to start with. “This entire quadrant is going to be without oxygen in about 10 minutes!” he exclaimed. “Comms are down, we have to locate the route to the interior or else fix the problem ourselves.”
    Shadow made to sweep off towards the other end of the hall, but stopped as he noticed Sonic wasn’t following him, he was standing, leaning a hand against the window, outside which there was an expanse of twinkling stars beyond the gradient of light reflected of the watery planet’s surface.
    “Shadowww… I feel… funny,” Sonic said, he sounded scared and was swaying just a tad, breath shallow and his speech slurring. He smiled a little lopsidedly. “W-warm…”
    “Damnit Sonic, you’re asphyxiating, this is from the depressurization, we need to move NOW,” Shadow said crossly, trying to pull Sonic along, but the blue hedgehog only stumbled a few steps and almost tripped over himself. He took a deep, wracking breath, struggling to push himself to his knees. Shadow glanced worriedly at the wall panel, the oxygen had dropped to 60% capacity, he was still okay, but Sonic seemed to be really affected already.
    “I’m… not feeling too chipper, Faker…” Sonic groaned. It was happening so fast, but then, Sonic did run a lot, and relied on powerful lungs, Shadow reasoned, the blue hedgehog hero’s body must be used to rich, oxygenated blood. Now that it was thinning the blue hedgehog was in a loopy state and Shadow knew it would only get worse. Sonic almost fell over again, but Shadow caught him by the arm and pulled him to a shaky standing position right alongside him.
    “Easy now, idiot, we’ve got to get out of here,” Shadow said sternly, looking around for the exit to the central hub of the ARK. It had to be almost half a mile away across the space station, through twisting maze-like umbilicals and dark, derelict chambers.
    “Shhhhadow… what’s… my head… it’s all… fuzzy,” Sonic said unevenly, slurring worse than ever. Shadow’s thoughts were interrupted, Sonic was sweating profusely, droplets dribbling down his long, blue spines. The blue hedgehog looked quite ill. He had his hands pressing at his head; his pointed, triangular ears seemed to have popped because he was rubbing them vigorously. The black hedgehog knew he had to work fast. If Sonic wasn’t able to run fast, they were going to be in big trouble, and he knew there wouldn’t be time to run and get help. There was only 50% remaining as it was!
    Shadow wracked his brains while he could; he recalled, from decades prior, when he had been raised on this station… something about emergency measures on the ARK in case of air loss. There should be special oxygen tanks tucked away somewhere. Sliding his arm under Sonic’s calves and lifting him in a bridal carry, Shadow whooshed off down the corridor. There were faint red lights flashing now, the module on the wall said they were down to 40%, less than half! Shadow turned off the jet boosters on his shoes in case the combustion was using extra oxygen, running along normally now, but at a still frantic pace.
    As he was carried, Sonic was looking blearily around at the blurring passageway with its windows into endless space and view of the glowing, blue planet below. His eyes focused slowly on Shadow. His air-deprived mind was filling him with strange, erratic thoughts. Not just erratic… erotic too. The blue hedgehog giggled drunkenly and nuzzled his head into the fluffy, white tuft on Shadow’s chest.
    “Sonic, what are you doing?” Shadow asked incredulously with a hint of impatient anger. The blue hedgehog looked up.
    “My head’s… fuzzyyyy… your… your chest is all… f-fuzz… fuzz-eeeeee tooooo…” Sonic said thickly, his face all aflush for some reason. He gave Shadow a vague smile.
    Shadow scowled, his own cheeks gaining just a hint of heat too, from the oxygen loss finally affecting him, he told himself.
    The ARK never felt so uselessly huge as when you were trying to find something very specific. He was sure that most chambers were supposed to be outfitted with those Emergency Access panels, but they were in the patchy, mostly unfinished part of the ARK, which had been in construction when the place shut down and all the remaining money started to go into the cover-up. Half the corridors opened onto the vacuum of space and had no airlocks; they had to navigate through the inconvenient, roundabout maze of chambers that actually were sealed and habitable, or normally were before the air started draining away like a punctured balloon that is.
    Shadow finally reached a black and yellow striped panel along the wall and skidded to a halt. He set Sonic down on the floor, but the hedgehog didn’t seem to want to let go of him, whining and holding onto his shoulders. Shadow wrenched free with a snarl and focused on the EA module. It took some careful keystrokes on a keypad at open, which was definitely a designer oversight for the scenario where it would normally be used, by panicking people, or hedgehogs in this case; he tried 3 times and failed. Shadow’s brain finally seemed to be getting muddled by the decreasing atmosphere. He had to calm himself down and focus on the task, but Sonic’s breathing was getting slower and more labored behind him by the second.
    The panel finally beeped quietly and opened with a hiss. A tank of oxygen and a first-aid kid were inside among other unrecognizable old tech. He grabbed a plastic mask with an air tube attached to it and turned to face Sonic again. Part of Shadow’s oxygen-deprived brain registered that there was only one mask, but he didn’t pay it any mind for the moment, right now focusing only on saving Sonic.
    The blue hedgehog was flopped on the metal floor, seated with his legs splayed and his head between his knees. Perhaps some part of him remembered an airline stewardess’s instructions during airplane cabin depressurization on Mobius, but more likely he’d just collapsed.
    “Sonic, c’mon, stay with me, you ignoramus,” Shadow muttered, dragging Sonic into a seated position. The blue hedgehog’s eyelids fluttered, blurry green irises looked up and he grinned again. “Good. Now, remain calm, Sonic, do not hyperventilate. Try to breathe normally,” Shadow instructed as he helped Sonic fasten the mask over his mouth. Sonic nodded slowly, he seemed to be trying to focus again. The atmosphere monitor beeped again; 25%. Sonic’s eyes were extremely unfocused, his body trembling a bit, begging for air.
    Shadow hurried to the tank in the wall compartment and twisted the knob to release the gas. Sonic began breathing, a little fast at first, but slowly becoming more normal, if deep and uncharacteristically slow. Shadow was relieved for just a second as he watched Sonic before he felt his knees give way. He fell on his face in front of the open EA panel. His own mind was feeling quite muzzy; he wouldn’t be the voice of reason for very long, that was for sure.
    “Shadz!” Sonic rushed over and tried to help Shadow up, but his body was still a clumsy with suffocation.
    Shadow pushed himself into a pained seated position, his back against the wall. Sonic crawled over and rummaged around in the panel, moving the first-aid kit and looking behind it. There was no second mask; that meant there was only one option for both of them to survive.
    “Here, Shadow. I can hold my breath for a little bit…” Sonic pulled the mask off and offered it to the black hedgehog, whose breathing had grown very shallow. Shadow looked for a moment like he was going to refuse, but Sonic wasn’t having any of it, he forced the mask over Shadow’s mouth and nose.
    “We- we can’t stay here… we have to… have to get…” Shadow said breathily before taking more inhales of the emergency oxygen. After about a half a minute, Sonic patted Shadow’s knee and the black hedgehog nodded and they swapped over. Sonic was experienced in holding his breath from extended adventures where he’d spent reluctant time underwater, but that didn’t mean he could do it forever.
    Still feeling light-headed, the pair of hedgehogs passed the air mask back and forth like a joint among stoners. Meanwhile, the oxygen ticked down to 10%. The shift in air pressure was making their quills tingle unpleasantly; the density of the very oxygen-light air around them was dissoluting. It felt… weird. If they stayed here any long, Shadow feared it might have lasting effects. There was only so much that lungs full of oxygen could do in a completely depressurized chamber with no proper spacesuit. And the oxygen in the tank was going to run out eventually.
    But what could they do? The map on the wall was indicating that they were nowhere near the safe hub of the stable ARK core. Neither of them had a Chaos Emerald to try Chaos Control to warp out of danger even if they could concentrate enough to pull it off, addled as they were.
    “Comms… comms still down?” Sonic asked after taking another few huffs of oxygen, his voice weirdly muffled on his own plugged ears as they popped again from the pressure. Shadow squinted up at a rapidly blinking panel, which showed only 5% oxygen remaining.
    “Maybe… maybe they’re back online. We’d have to… access them through that panel though,” Shadow said laboriously, pointing a trembling hand to the facing wall. Sonic nodded.
    With great effort, the blue hedgehog forced himself onto his feet and took a deep breath from the air mask before handing it off the Shadow who watched as Sonic staggered over the sparse few meters to the wall with the panel, leaning his body against it, his cheeks puffed up with stoppered air. He tapped the panel with a gloved hand and squinted at the readout. Shadow could see the light of the scrolling data reflected in Sonic’s glassy, damp eyes, they seemed non-comprehending though. Shadow fought the urge to sigh, he couldn’t afford to expend the exhalation.
    Sonic was clever in many ways, speedy in others, but when it came to reading comprehension, especially of a technical sort, he wasn’t the fastest by a longshot. Sonic tapped at the screen again and then his face brightened up. He gave Shadow a silent thumbs-up and the black hedgehog’s heart lifted. They had comms! They could call for help!
    Sonic tapped at the screen some more and then finally he spoke into a pull-away speaker on a coiled cord in a choked, truncated version of his usual tone.
    “Tails… Tails, are you… there?” Sonic said.
    Static answered for a few moments and there was a tense couple seconds when both were worried they were on their own. But then the mousy, boyish voice of the young twin-tailed fox Miles "Tails" Prower answered.
    “Sonic? Is that you?”
    “Y-yes, Tails… please, we need- Shadow and I are here… Air’s… low… need rescue… quick!” Sonic coughed, his knees were trembling and he leaned more on the wall, sliding down slightly, clutching the receiver.
    “Sonic! Okay, okay, don’t panic, Sonic. I have the location of your comms panel on my computer; I’ll be there just as fast as I can with help. In the meantime, can you get to the Emergency Access Panel?
    “We’ve found it already!” Shadow called from the opposite wall between breaths from the oxygen mask. Sonic wasn’t sure that the radio picked it up though so he forced himself to reiterate it in an ever more choked voice.
    “We got air, but… not much. No… rush though. Just… suffocating a bit,” Sonic was incapable of refraining from injecting a bit of sass into the interaction it seemed.
    “Hang tight, Sonic!” Tails squeaked. Even through the static, his anxious voice crack was apparent. The feed cut off and the radio slipped from Sonic’s grip, swinging and then retracting back into the communications panel on the wall.
    “Sonic, get back over here, quick,” Shadow said, but Sonic seemed to not hear him. He was sliding down the far wall with his eyes closed, his chest heaving, but unable to pull any air from his surroundings. The talking had taken too much out of him and now his body was really struggling. A faint beeping announced oxygen levels at 0%.
    “Shadz…” he mouthed, no further breath escaping. “Help…”
    Shadow got unsteadily to his feet and he grasped the air tank from inside the EAP and pulled. It was very heavy, Sonic probably wouldn’t have been able to lift it under normal circumstances, but Shadow wasn’t a normal hedgehog. Even so, his muscles were air-deprived and weren’t working right in the depressurized corridor.
    He stumbled over towards Sonic, dragging the tank. The dull screeching it made as the tank’s bottom scratched a scar in the unfinished metal floor was weirdly muffled in Shadow’s ears. Both hedgehogs were losing their hearing as pounding, de-oxygenated and inadequately oxygenated blood rushed in their ears.
    The mask was forced onto Sonic’s face again and his breathing picked up again slowly. Sonic opened his eyes and gazed blearily at Shadow, who was crouched beside him, sweat glistening all over him. Sonic gave him a grateful smile. The pair resumed their mask swapping, now leaning against the facing wall from before. Neither felt able to talk, which was probably for the best since it would waste more oxygen and they’d probably struggle to hear it anyway. Instead they just held each other’s hands as a sort of anchor to reality as their senses dulled one by one. Hearing was gone, and sight was going very blurry.
    Sonic kept looking at Shadow in an odd way, the hedgehog’s gaze unabashedly traced his companion’s sweat-shined black and red body, gazing with half-lids on his unfocused, emerald green eyes. Inside Sonic’s head, thoughts moved at a snail’s pace now, he was having trouble remembering what exactly was going on even with regular comforting squeezes from Shadow’s palm in his. More and more his thoughts revolved around the only other living being with him. He glanced at the air mask as it was offered to him for the umpteenth time, then, without warning he dropped it.
    “Sonnnic, what’re yoou…” Shadow slurred, leaning forward and feeling for the hose of the air tank. Then Sonic threw himself on the black hedgehog. Shadow couldn’t fathom what he was doing, but for some reason the thought ‘this feels nice’ moved like a drifting glacier through his molasses mind. He was struggling to hold onto his sense of danger as the deliriously giggling blue hedgehog wrapped clumsy arms around his waist and hugged him.
    Shadow’s roving hand found the mask and he forced it onto Sonic’s face for a third time. It didn’t seem to restore any sense or order though. Sonic tucked his head under Shadow’s chin and nestled into his chest fluff, nuzzling like a kitten. There was an odd snuffling and the goofily grinning hedgehog pushed himself more forcefully up against Shadow’s body, his cheeks bulging like a chipmunk’s. Shadow’s face filled with blotchy blush.
    “G-geddoff… Soniii…” he mumbled, and then Sonic’s lips found his.
    It was very awkward as a method of air transference; the mermaids in the movies made it look so easy. If air transference were to be hypothesized as Sonic’s intent with this then that would be an overestimation of his current mental capacity though. Shadow’s brain was nagging him to be embarrassed and angry, but he wasn’t listening to his brain so much anymore. The lips felt soft, and Sonic’s weight against him felt… nice. He had just enough sense left to break the kiss after an eternal-feeling few seconds and forced himself, and Sonic with difficulty, to breathe more air through the mask.
    Then they went right back to the kissing. Taste seemed to be one of the few unimpeded senses left to perceive the world, and Sonic tasted a little sweet to Shadow, while Shadow tasted very… spicy to Sonic. Sonic’s long, athletic legs were cradled neatly between the black hedgehog’s slightly parted, red-striped knees and he had his arms draped over Shadow’s shoulders, both their chests pressed intently together. Shadow had a slightly broader, more built torso than Sonic did, but right now it felt too weak to lift him off even if he wanted to.
    Both were currently mentally functioning only in the present, the thinking parts of their brains firing weaker and weaker signals. They were unable to remember too far into the past or to consider consequences in the future. If they survived this, perhaps later they could come to regret it a little bit, if there were even memories of the vent, but right now it was the most wonderful thing in their little perilously depressurized world.
    Sonic’s hands were advancing down Shadow’s back now, tracing both his spines and his spine all the way down to the base of his tail, which was quivering. Sonic was exploring Shadow’s shining, black body as if he’d never seen one before, curiously caressing the sweat-coated contours. The black hedgehog’s air-starved nerves were unused to this gentle treatment; a pleasant tingling was overtaking the cramping pain of everything else.
    Shadow was huffing rather harder on the air hose, his exhales steaming up the plastic of the mask. He felt heat, too much heat, Sonic was so warm on top of him. He squirmed a bit, feebly underneath the blue hedgehog’s weight. Sonic kissed him again. They each took another breath. Kiss. Breath. Kiss.
    They shared oxygen and saliva, as well as the sweat mixing on their intertwining bodies. Everything was wet and everything was hot. Both hedgehogs’ faces flushed with color. Kiss. Breath. Kiss. Breath. Kiss.
    “Lllluff… Shhhonn… iiic…” Shadow groaned before the pounding silence made them both deaf. The air pressure was dangerously low; the only oxygen they were able to glean was from the steady stream from the air tank. It was probably the dumbest thing for either of their bodies to do at this exact moment, but at this exact moment neither of their command centers were particularly smart.
    Later it could be theorized that it was carnal need that compelled them into having sexual intercourse, but no one else was there to witness the tender foreplay, the roving, continual kisses, the telltale passionate looks into each others’ eyes. With all the awkward pride and reputation anxiety stripped away and forgotten, there was undeniable love between Sonic and Shadow, pure and true.
    In spite of seemingly all their other systems shutting down, the two boys’ post-pubescent reproductive systems were still very much active, and with all the heat betwixt them it was only a matter of time before it found its way south. Blood rushed from sputtering, starving brains through blushing faces to the waiting, already stirring organs. And they awoke like monsters, hungry beasts demanding attention. The hot, pink flesh that swelled in Sonic’s lap was almost perfectly aligned with the darker flesh with its red stripe along the length that perked from Shadow’s loins.
    The alien DNA had given Shadow’s member the idiosyncratic quirk of a few extra sensitive barbs along its underside and a strange, unnatural look to its shape, not that any of that would bother Sonic in his current state, or any other state for that matter, if he were this worked up.
    Both cocks were pressed together by the needy bodies; they were entirely invisible normally, their crotches flat despite lacking any usual bottomwear, so where they had come from was a mystery, a mystery neither cared about explaining in the slightest right now. As they swelled to full mast, or as full and hard as they could under the circumstances, it was clear that Sonic’s was larger. The throbbing, mushroom tip cleared Shadow’s tapered dark flesh by about an inch and a half, perhaps more.
    The air hose was really being taxed by the gasping and harsh inhales of the two as they ground together, incapable of resisting now, if they could ever. The kisses became sloppier, their hands numb and clumsy as they scrabbled at each other’s fuzzy, slickened, sweaty bodies. Shadow remained on the bottom, somehow some instinct was making him assume a submissive role to the blue hedgehog pinning him.
    Sonic’s awkward, gloved hand found Shadow’s member at last and fastened laboriously around its length. Moans exuded silently through the airless air; the black hedgehog, normally so proud, was getting turned on more by his helplessness to Sonic’s ministrations. The dominant Sonic had his hands cupping both lengths at once and was pumping them with all his might, which wasn’t much in this state, but perhaps it was just enough.
    The action of Sonic moving his slim, trembling arms was clearly quite taxing; after a few moments, Shadow kindly assisted him, lending his strength as his own hands closed over Sonic’s on their collective cocks. Together they continued the stimulation, but with all of their hands occupied, the air hose tumbled uselessly to the side, the oxygen sputtering, unused in a stream that diffused into the emptiness.
    Hips gyrated and thrust, Sonic barely lifted a few inches by Shadow’s weakened humping propulsions. Sonic kissed Shadow savagely, sucking at his lips like he was trying to pull the oxygen from his companion’s lungs. His hot, wet tongue lashed the interior of the black hedgehog’s mouth, slathering animalistically over sharp incisors. The taste of blood was passed between the two, but whose neither knew nor cared. Their bodies were going numb, no oxygen was left, and yet the blood pulsed in their aroused penises without fail. Neither probably had the brainpower to add up 2 and 2 right now, nor the body power to stand up, but their world collectively consisted entirely of each other at present. Together they felt things more intensely than anyone else in all the world spinning below.
    Kiss. Hump. Kiss. Thrust. They ground in utter desperation. Consciousness was right on the edge, and so was orgasm. They each wanted it so badly. Kiss. Want. Kiss. Need… Black was closing in on their brains. There was nothing left but the twitchy, rhythmic vibrating of their pelvises. Their hands grasped onto each other, squeezing with all their meager might, like they were trying to communicate without speech, without thought. Squeeze. Love. Squeeze. You.
    You would think Sonic would be the first to collapse with his unenhanced non-alien body, but Shadow actually went limp a few seconds before him, his alien cock dribbling seed, and what was left of his brain fading in pleasure. Shadow came first, prematurely; a matter he was be sure to be embarrassed about if he knew, on top of being a sub and everything else. Sonic was quick to join him, his own semen spurt uniting and fusing with Shadow’s, his last thoughts being only of love, love and possession.

    When Tails found the two unmoving he was terrified that he was too late first off, then he was curious what they were doing, and then he was blushing in his space helmet when he realized. Even someone as young and innocent as him could make no mistake on closer inspection. He busied himself smacking his handheld scanner, heart in his throat, squinting at the readout.
    “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon…” he muttered under his own suit-provided breath.
    Finally, miraculously, two very faint heartbeats registered. They had life signs. They were alive. The young fox would save his celebrations for later though. He activated the stretcher-bots and they swooped in to collect the bodies. Tails tried to ignore the way some kind of whitish fluid leaked from between them, but couldn’t help but notice that, in attempting to prise the two hedgehogs apart the stretcher-bots had a little bit of trouble. Sonic and Shadow’s fingers were interlocked and grasping and it took a few tries to yank them free and separate the two… lovers. Tails was tucking a lot of information away for later examination, the important thing right this moment was to get them somewhere safe and hopefully revive them. Maybe check for security camera feed if there was any… and delete it immediately afterwards.

    The medbay of the ARK was fully stocked and functional despite the space station being derelict for over 50 years. The pair was in very bad shape, but they were, amazingly, alive. The heartbeat monitors beeped their incredulous confirmation of that fact. Brain CAT scans even showed that there would probably be no lasting damage. It was a miracle beyond odds, any doctor would have said.
    Tails had told no one about the compromising position they’d been discovered in. The stretcher-bots Tails had brought along automatically disposed of the incriminating biological evidence as they sterilized the unconscious bodies in sealed, oxygenated tubes as they were transported, cleaning up the semen and sweat. To the rest, Knuckles, Rouge, and everybody, they had just run out of air and collapsed totally asexually. As Tails told them: ‘there was no mess, no intertwining bodies, no saliva samples of the other’s DNA found in the wrong one’s mouth, so don’t even check, ha ha.’
    However Rouge, who was a lot more perceptive than the others when it came to “forensic analysis” and also reading Tails’s face when he reported, definitely picked up that something was amiss about it. The close call had been too close though, everyone was honestly just relieved they were still alive, and if Sonic and Shadow had resorted to something carnal in a state of extreme oxygen deprivation, well, who could blame them?
    Still, she smiled when she visited the two teenage hedgehogs the second day in the medbay. They were still unconscious, but she found their hands stretched across the space between their beds, fingers interlocked. According to the monitors their heartbeat was in perfect sync.