Wasn't that impossible? Even when striving for perfection, no matter what angle you look at your actions from, someone will find it wrong. Someone will disagree, and though Sonic didn't think so deeply about that fact, he knew when Shadow strived for that existence, he might've been extending his reach a bit too far.

The vague notion of that is what made Sonic just forgive him over and over again.

The apology was assumed before he even said a word. His actions were a definition of how a child would act after telling their parents how much they hate them, knowing that no matter how loud they screamed it, it wasn't true. It likely never would be.

Conclusions on what to do with this began to show themselves in the settling dust, and though Sonic was awkward about Shadow's movements, he chose to go with the flow. He relaxed his hand on his shoulder, taking the knowledge available by the weather that Shadow was looking for warmth, and then dropped it behind him. Being a massive heat tank wasn't what he was expecting tonight.

"Okay," his acceptance emerged. "We're cool. Just think about what you're doin' first next time." Says the more reckless of the two.