A/N: So yeah this is kind of a self indulgent thing. I just feel like writing OC stuff and I am in a Sonic mood so why not.

I'm writing this for myself so there's absolutely no schedule or stuff like that. Though I might prioritize this over other stuff I'm working on (none fic related though) if a lot of people enjoy it.

Rating will probably go up later.

Station Square had a lonely atmosphere at night. Besides the controversial casino area, most of the city seemed to lose its vitality at night. The people felt emptier, like they were only waiting for the right moment to disintegrate into a cloud of dust. Exhausted souls rested inside their residences, gathering up energy to endure yet another day of their mundane lives. The only noise in the residential part of the city was the sound of the cool breeze shaking the tree's leaves, and occasionally light to heavy rain. It was as if nothing and nobody felt like existing between midnight and five AM.

All except this particular old man, Cornelius noted.

He watched as the old man – a human – struggled to find the right key amidst the darkness. He would have offered to shine his phone's flashlight, but a small "aha!" told him that it wasn't required anymore.

"The… the alarm system is… well, not installed yet. I haven't had enough time to do it before I made my decision to sell this place. But I'll be here tomorrow morning to get you a list of all the contacts and everything else you need to get this place running."

Cornelius gave a light nod, stepping into the establishment. There wasn't really any dust or mold or anything else that might indicate the place had been abandoned by the old man too long ago, but it still had that air of lifelessness the rest of the city had. He absentmindedly ran his hands on top of the tables as he walked, feeling the cold wooden surfaces brushing against his fur. The counter was next, and then the walls. He had accidentally found the switch while doing that, but decided against turning the lights on at the moment. He wasn't in the right mindset to evaluate his possibly bad decision yet.

"You… hey, young man…" The human began, staring directly at Cornelius' dark chestnut-colored eyes. "I'm up for a refund, if this was a… if this might have been a mistake caused by…"

"I don't drink, Steven." It was kind of ironic that the old man had a younger sounding name than he did, wasn't it? Cornelius let himself be amused at the fact as he walked upstairs. "I'm not old enough for it anyways."

"Quite the awkward age, wouldn't you say? Adult enough to buy an entire café and a place for yourself here at Station Square, but not old enough to get some humble booze." Steven let out a chuckle.

"Was that how you got this place?"

"Oh, well – not quite. I bought it this year. I haven't been able to start business yet because of… health issues. Not mine, my wife's health."

"It's okay man. Backstory's not included in the contract."

Two bedrooms, a bathroom and an empty room. Not bad for the price the old man had offered. Cornelius could see himself decorating the place in the near future, though. It was a little too sterile for his liking in its current state. A few cheesy motivational cat posters here, a few portraits there, and a lot of post-it notes around the whole house to remind him he had actual responsibilities now. This place would be feeling like home anytime soon, whether Cornelius liked that or not.

"I insist you hear it some time, though. It might define how you interact with this place."

Cornelius turned around to see that the human had reached the floor – and turned on the lights. The mobian found funny the way his bald head glistened under the fluorescent lamp's shine.

"You're starting to sound like you killed people here and stuff."

"I'm afraid I cannot disclose that information. Backstory is not included in the contract."

"Nice one."

The man knocked his cane lightly onto the ground for no particular reason – or at least none Cornelius could think of. Maybe he just wanted to cement the joke. Maybe his arms were cramping. Who knows, old people are like that sometimes.

"Where have you been staying, if I might ask? I recall that you moved here a little bit before we started negotiating, yes?"

"At the casino. It's pretty cheap there, since y'know. The place is made to attract people and get them in debt."

"Ah, I see. Nice choice."

"Not really. People there aren't right in the head. And you know what they say, right? Rabbit's foot gives you luck." Cornelius raised his hand, pointing at Steven with his cute little paw pads (which regular rabbits don't have, but some mobian ones do). "I intend to keep these."

"Nice choice as well. I can't say I remember any murders happening there, but it would be nice if you weren't the first one."

Cornelius walked into the empty room, which proved to be not-so-empty due to the presence of an empty bookshelf. Suspicious. He pushed it to the side to uncover a large safe embedded onto the wall.

"Hey, I found the place you hide all the dead bodies. Come open it for me so I can loot their stuff."

Steven let out a small chuckle before entering the room. Cornelius heard all of his vertebrae cracking as he crouched to input the correct password. Swinging the safe door opened, he revealed… bottles? It was a lot of space for just bottles, but there was no trace of corpses or anything more worrying.

"You're definitely old enough to keep your big boy juice out."

"Can't risk one of the customers walking into the house part of the building by accident and drinking all my expensive "big boy juice", can I now? Especially if they're underaged. That could get me in trouble."

"…Good point, actually. Won't call the police on you just yet, but you better watch out."

"They're yours now, by the way. Though I'll only give you the password once you're twenty-one." Steven chuckled.

"You better. Or else I'm gonna lockpick it and probably set off my own alarm."

Cornelius then proceeded to walk through the rest of the rooms upstairs. The bathroom was a little less empty than the rest, since Steven had gone ahead and purchased some soap and "mobian-adequate shampoo" for him. One of the bedrooms had a king-sized bed, and the other had a single-sized one. After that, they headed back downstairs so Cornelius could properly analyze the business part of the house. All of the cooking equipment was already there, but there was nothing in the fridge, meaning a lengthy trip to the nearest supermarket as well as the search for a supplier – and pretty much everything else business related. He'd have to stop winging things from now on.

"So… it is quite late at night, and I presume this will be your first proper night of sleep here at Station Square, so I shall take my leave."

"Yeah. I gotta think about all of this for a while."

"Understandable. And oh, I almost forgot– catch."

Cornelius turned right on time to see the object flying towards him and extended his hands forward. He could swear he was going to let it fall, but it was almost as if the object snapped onto his hands.

"What is this for?"

"Just a little hand warmer."

The sun shone bright in the sky as another train arrived at Station Square Station (kind of a mouthful). The doors slowly opened to let a barrage of tall humans out, the another barrage of not so tall humans and mobians, then finally the two fuzzy companions that were starting to feel like they should have taken a plane.

"Tails, I think we might have taken the wrong train." Sonic said as he stepped out of the train. He stretched his legs in a relaxed manner, although both mobians knew how much stress was put onto them as of late.

"No, we took the right one." Tails shrugged, stepping out behind Sonic and starting to make his way out of the station – whether Sonic was following behind him or not (Tails knew he was).

"Of course, we didn't, this isn't the HQ! This is… Station Square!" Sonic exclaimed. "As much as I miss jogging on Emerald Coast, this is no time for a tropical vacation."

"I know that, Sonic."

Sonic squinted. "Mind telling me what's going on, buddy?"

"I just thought we could use a break! We've been searching for the emeralds for weeks, and you haven't even showered once!"

"I don't see nothing out of the ordinary."

Tails made a disgusted expression. "Not a good thing to be proud of, Sonic."

"Look, I'm just saying, we're kinda in the middle of a… a big thing! Eggman's been sending out a lot more robots lately, if we don't keep our eyes open, then… Tails?"

Sonic slowly snapped out of his little monologue as he noticed Tails wasn't within hearing distance anymore. A quick sprint was able to fix that, however.

"Fastest thing alive, remember? You can't outrun me, dork."

Tails shrugged. "Just wanted you to shut up and follow me, and it works every time."

Sonic opened his mouth, then closed it again. "Watch your attitude, little man!"

"I'm nineteen!" Tails puffed his cheeks, stomping his foot on the ground.

"Psh, whatever. So, guess we're officially taking a break now. Where do you wanna go? Twinkle Park? Casinopolis? How about we visit the statue they made of me for defeating Chaos? I do love that one."

"Hm… I'm kinda hungry. I could go for some sweets right now."

"Really? I could really go for some chili dogs."

"You need to diversify your diet. It's a miracle you're still able to fight off Eggman like that."

"You want salad or dessert, Tails?"

"…Fair. We can talk about your eating habits after I down a whole strawberry cake."

"Now we're talking! Your pick."

Sonic and Tails got off the train station and started walking around. After a while, they arrived at a small clearing in the sea of buildings (a square, if you will). Sonic enjoyed looking at the previously mentioned statue of him, until he felt Tails tugging on his arm and gesturing towards a building with a modest yellow and pink heart-patterned painting.

Sonic raised an eyebrow. "Fluffy Treats? Haven't seen this one before. Must be new."

"Isn't basically everything new? Perfect Chaos happened, remember?"

Sonic nodded. It was a really surreal experience – it was possible to see the exact places where Chaos couldn't reach in its murderous rampage, both due to the different architectural style of the buildings and even some debris that had been turned into new landmarks and tourist spots.

"Sometimes I wish I could forget, that thing gives me nightmares." Sonic let out a small chuckle. "Anyways, Fluffy Treats! Looks pretty understaffed to me, looks like it's gonna take a w– Hey, don't stop in front of me!"

"Sorry, I just…"

"Yeah?"

"You know how I said we should take a break from the emeralds?"

"…Don't tell me you disliked this place so much that it made you wanna go back to work."

"No, that's not it! I didn't want to go back to searching the emeralds just yet, but… the radar…"

Sonic let out a small gasp. "Do you think he…?"

"Looks like it. The emerald on my bag is also going crazy!"

Tails looked around to see if anyone was looking in their general direction, then took out the blue Chaos Emerald from his bag with quite a bit of difficulty as it seemed to be vibrating wildly. At first nothing happened, but the moment Tails relaxed his grip the gem flew off his hand at a high speed and hit the barista right in the face, causing him to fall backwards onto one of the coffee machines and making it squirt whipped cream on him for a brief period of time.

Everyone inside the shop stopped and looked at the empty counter for a moment, until the barista got up a few moments later with the blue emerald in his hands. He was a rabbit-mobian, having mainly white fur with patches of caramel on his eyes, ears and abdomen, which was covered by an apron – the only piece of clothing he was wearing. He was a little above the average height for a human, which was kind of short for human standards.

"Oh my god, are you alright?! I'm very sorry for that, mister Co…okie?" Tails raised an eyebrow as he looked at the mobian's apron. There were two name tags, once with "Hello, my name is Cornelius!" and another with "…but calling me Cookie gives you 5% off your purchases."

"I'm good. My back kinda hurts now, but I'm not really allowed to die during business hours." He chuckled, extending his hand towards the two. "Is this yours?"

Tails nodded and took the emerald from Cookie's hand, placing it back into his bag. "Yeah, it's ours. I'm so sorry for that, it's… it almost never does that, I swear."

Cookie raised an eyebrow. "Almost never is more often than never."

"Well... It's an uncommon but not rare phenomenon that happens when the amount of Chaos energy…"

Cookie quickly zoned out of the lengthy explanation, instead setting his eyes on the blue hedgehog that was staring at him with a hint of disbelief.

"Something on my face?" Cookie asked, then noticed he indeed had whipped cream on his face and wiped it off. "…Something else?"

"How did you do that?"

"Hm? I did at least two things in the past minute, you gotta be more specific… Speedy? Sorry, I've never really stopped to read your statue's plaque."

"Sonic." The hedgehog crossed his arms over his chest, turning to face his fox companion. "Tails, did you see that?"

Tails raised an eyebrow. "I don't know what you're talking about either, Sonic."

Sonic glared at his friend for another moment, then quickly reached for Tails' bag. He took the blue emerald and slowly tossed it towards Cookie, who caught it with his hands this time. Both Tails and Cookie himself looked confused at Sonic, until the fox let out a gasp.

"Wait… How the…?"

"You threw it slower this time, that's how."

"Not what we mean!" Sonic let out a groan. "You're holding it!"

"…Should I not be?"

"No! I mean, yes! I mean… Without gloves!"

"Oh." Cookie let out a small chuckle. "I cook with my gloves on, don't worry. I also wear a special suit when molting season comes, so I don't j–"

"You're holding a Chaos Emerald with your bare hands!" Tails interrupted. "That's impossible!"

Cookie tilted his head in confusion. "I don't know what a Chaos Emerald is, but I hold my hand warmer all the time with no issue. Maybe you're just sensitive to the kind of plastic it's made out of or something."

"The kind of pl– Hand warmer?"

"Yeah." He nonchalantly pulled out his own hand warmer out of his apron pockets: yellow and translucid, in the same shape and size as Tails'. "Same brand, I guess. Don't see them very often."

"How in the world are you holding two Chaos Emeralds with your bare hands?!" Tails blurted out. Cookie was starting to get uncomfortable at the amount of people from both inside and outside the cafe that were staring at them. "You should be dead by now!"

"My parents say the same thing to me."

"…"

"Kidding, they don't really talk to me anymore. And my therapist told me to stop the self-deprecating jokes so just ignore I said that. But uh… Look, I really don't wanna sound like I'm just trying to make you go away, but I'm not as bright as I used to be and I really don't know what you two are talking about."

Sonic and Tails turned to look at each other, then back at Cookie… then back at each other. They had just noticed how unorthodox the whole situation was. Sonic was about to slam his hands on the counter and blurt out something stupid, but he got distracted by the sound of people hastily making their way out of their shop. When he turned, the hedgehog was startled to find a big missile with the Eggman logo painted on it speeding towards the café.

"Welp, I won't be able to afford the CD I wanted this month. That's a lot of people that left without paying." Cookie let out a sigh, setting the blue emerald on the counter nonchalantly ducking behind it. "Can you take care of that for me, pal? I can give you a free croissant one of these days."

Sonic was already on his way even before Cookie had finished his sentence. Tails looked back at the rabbit one last time before hurrying to help Sonic. After some minutes, a faint explosion noise could be heard coming from the sky, and both the missile and the two heroes were gone.

Cookie let out a sigh, standing up once again. He leaned forward onto the counter and grasped his yellow emerald with both hands, feeling the familiar warmth seeping into his hands and flowing throughout his body. Whatever that incident had been it had really scared people off the square, as there were only two other customers throughout the rest of the day. Cookie had already closed the store and was preparing to go upstairs for his well deserved rest, when he heard some very loud knocks coming from the front door.

"CHAOTIX DETECTIVE AGENCY, OPEN UP!"