Silver's ear twitched as he heard an unusual ruffle from somewhere in his otherwise silent house, which caught his full attention. He had just taken a homemade pizza out of the oven, and sat it on the kitchen counter to cool. His smile of pride at the wonderful scent of cheeses and spinach snapped straight. Another noise - what seemed to be a light sniffle - sent a wave of urgency through his chest. Silver was careful to turn every knob on the oven until they clicked off, for he had often ran into trouble in the past; he then removed his apron, and set off to find the source of the disturbance.

The hedgehog shuffled through the living room, and into a smaller den. There, he found what he had feared: a lilac cat sitting on a couch, her head in her hands, sobbing over an open laptop.

"Oh, Blaze," Silver mumbled, hints of worry and sympathy in his eyes. He was careful about approaching the feline, and slowly lowered himself to a seat next to her. When she didn't look up, he tried shifting so that she could feel his presence. Still, she didn't look to him. It was clear that she was avoiding interaction on purpose. Blaze had seen his grey figure blurred by tears far too often recently. She sobbed again.

Silver laid a cautious hand on her shoulder, and ran it over her back in an attempt to comfort her. Finally, Blaze lifted her head to reveal her red, swollen eyes, and the hedgehog quickly retracted his arm. He leaned into her line of sight, and signed to her. "What's wrong?"

Blaze took a while to respond. She would intermittently avert her eyes to Silver's lap, but otherwise kept her gaze locked on her computer screen, which showed a blank word document. Each blink of the text cursor seemed to drive a knife deeper into her soul. Silver was certain that part of her sadness was a result, albeit a small part.

The feline raised her tear-stained hands, only long enough to sign "I'm such a failure", and fell into them again with another sob.

"No! No you're-" Silver sighed. He wrapped his arms around her, and she shuddered against the touch of his chest. He nuzzled his cheek against the soft fur below her ponytail, and held her tight until he felt her hand move. The albino pulled away, and took the opportunity to sign, "Don't say that!"

Blaze wiped her muzzle with the base of her palm, and held her hands over her eyes for another moment. She closed her laptop, placed it on the floor, and finally looked to Silver. "I'm," she hesitated, "I'm sorry."

"Why?"

The feline's bottom lip quivered. "The world is so big," she signed, "you could've had anyone. But you got stuck with the depressed deaf girl."

Silver shook his head. He began to respond, but Blaze leaned away, propping her head up with her hand. He grabbed her shoulder, seeking her attention. "Hey, look at me."

As if she felt his exact words, her eyes shifted back toward him.

"You'll get there," Silver signed, "I know you will. And I'll be right there next to you when you do." He looked away for a moment, trying to figure out how to communicate what he truly wanted to say. The hedgehog blushed. "I want to see the smile on your face when you finish your book. When you have it published. When everyone else finds out how amazing you really are." A sense of nervousness overcame him, one stronger than any he had experienced in quite some time. The kind he had felt when he was just developing feelings for Blaze, many years before, over the Internet. The albino was hit with a sudden feeling of blissful nostalgia, and it froze him.

Blaze lifted her hands, but Silver motioned for her to stop. He continued his thought. "But most importantly, I want to be with you right now. I want to be here when you're sad. I want to pick you back up, and see you grow from this. Because..." The hedgehog paused. Tears were welling up in both pairs of eyes. Still, Silver smiled, and held out his hand. "I love you."

Blaze broke down once more, but this time, she wrapped Silver in an embrace. Silver kissed one of her ears, and half-expected her to begin sobbing into his chest, but she never did. It was a far cry from the days when Blaze tried so hard to bottle her feelings up. Truthfully, Silver didn't care either way, but he always found ways to love her even more in these more vulnerable moments. He was determined to see her happy again.

When they pulled away, Silver beamed. "I'm with you by choice, you know."

"I know."

"Remember when I drove the 300 miles to come see you that one night? Because I had to tell you my feelings?"

Blaze wiped at her muzzle again, and grinned. "You came all the way here and wouldn't tell me. I had to threaten to burn you just to figure out why you showed up at my door at four in the morning. You're still crazy for doing that, by the way."

"I was scared. I didn't know how you would take it. I couldn't even sign back then."

"I had feelings for you long before that. I just didn't want to admit it."

Silver chuckled. A buried memory suddenly jumped to the front of his mind. "Hey, you know back when we were just talking online? I always dreamt of the day I would meet you in person. I even made a playlist of songs that we would listen to. That was before I knew you were deaf."

Blaze tried to suppress a laugh, but couldn't. Her expression fell not a moment later, though. "See? I ruin everything."

"Well..." Silver stood with a grin. "It's never too late."

Blaze tilted her head, watching the albino in suspicion as he left the room. After some frantic searching, he returned with a small speaker and his phone, the former of which he sat on Blaze's lap between her hands. The feline raised her brow in confusion. Silver typed out a search on his phone, and pulled up a page of song lyrics.

Silver showed the title to Blaze, sliding closer to her. "Have you ever seen this one?"

Blaze shook her head.

The hedgehog's lips curled up again. "This was one of the first songs I picked for us. Sorry if it's too sappy."

Silver hit play on the song, and turned up the volume on the speaker so that Blaze could feel it shake against her body with the music. The feline turned to him in astonishment; he encouraged her to read the lyrics:

Beauty queen of only eighteen /
She had some trouble with herself /
He was always there to help her /
She always belonged to someone else /

Blaze felt a change in the vibrations - a higher-frequency melody over the original rhythm began, which she could only assume to be the vocals. She thought, for a moment, that she could even pick out each syllable that was said. She hugged the speaker tight to her chest, allowing the bass to beat against her heart. Once she believed the vocals had caught up, she read along:

I drove for miles and miles and wound up at your door /
I've had you so many times but somehow I want more /

The feline glanced to her lover, who was turning to a blur again. The song continued:

I don't mind spending every day /
Out on your corner in the pouring rain /
Look for the girl with the broken smile /
Ask her if she wants to stay awhile /
And she will be loved /
And she will be loved /

Blaze had read enough. She could no longer hold her tears back, which came streaming down her muzzle once more. Silver leaned into her, turned her cheek toward him, and placed a gentle kiss on her lips. Blaze returned his affection, curled into his chest, and rested her bright smile on the speaker as it continued to play. Silver embraced her, and stroked the fluff on the side of her face, planting kisses over her head all the while.

For the remainder of the song, Blaze was in a world of her own. She closed her eyes, and relived all the wonderful times she'd had with Silver, even long before they met in person. All her sadness, all her shortcomings, all her anxiety over the future - they all vanished in that moment. She was lost, but she was lost with him, and that was all that mattered; that was all she cared about. The only sense Blaze felt was Silver's pure, effervescent love, spoken to her through the most improbable medium - the one she had always dreamt of experiencing.

Blaze lifted her hand, and signed "I love you" into Silver's chest. She then mumbled - quite the rarity, given that she was so shy about speaking aloud - only just loud enough to reach her lover's ears:

"With all my heart."

what's up y'all, thank u for reading this sappy shit. obviously, I don't own the song lyrics; it's She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5 (I think everyone knew that lmao I'm just covering my bases).

this was something I wrote from another au I have with ru (also shoutout to her for helping me edit this, ily u homie ur awesome). it's basically a story where silver and blaze form a relationship online through fandom. silv's a fanartist, and blaze is (obviously) a deaf writer. I'm not really planning on writing the full story, but maybe I'll do some more one-shots like this at some point. I have so many other au's with ru to do stuff for tho, lmao, a bunch of them I haven't even gotten to yet.

I'll also just use this space to give an update for my more frequent readers, bc I don't think I'll be posting anything else before the new year:

I'm still trying to work on the silvaze royalty au, and I'm getting to the third chapter now. that's my only real focus outside of these one-shots atm. idk when royalty au will actually be finished, or how many chapters it will be; I don't have a timetable for it. this semester of school (and this whole year, really) has been a very rough time for me, and that kinda explains the lack of production. especially on my other fics, which I've kinda abandoned for one reason or another.

I'm just hoping that I can put this year of self-deprecation and feeling shitty about my work behind me. with my lack of popularity in the fandom, with writing, with art, with school; I'm gonna try to stay more positive from now on. hopefully that means I'll be more motivated to work on fics moving forward. I just wanna create stuff for people to get lost in and enjoy; stuff that will inspire others in some way. I want to make an impact on peoples' lives, but in a creative way, through my writing (or anything else I try). I know it's kinda stupid bc it's just fanfiction, but it means a lot to me. that's my focus for the future, no matter how many people actually read or like my stuff. if I really inspire someone even once, I'll consider it a success from now on.

anyways, here's to a better year next time around. hope you all have a merry christmas, and happy holidays! thanks for reading again!