"Have I ever told you thank you?" She half whispers, her hand grabbing at one of the many smooth pebbles strewn across the beach.
Amy Rose steals a glance over at Sonic. Any expression he may be wearing is obscured by the dark shades protecting his eyes from the heat. In his hand he clutches a fizzy drink, the ice tinkling softly against the glass.
"Well you're about as readable as ever." She grumbles with a slight hint of affection as she takes in his flippant, no care in the world stance- one leg folded over the other, right foot tapping an easy rhythm in the sand.
The sun is beating down at a comfortable temperature as she starts to sketch his face in the sand without looking.
Expressive eyes, boyish good looks, two quills at the top slightly longer than the others.
Amy looks up at the sound of excited laughter and sees their younger companions, Tails and Cream, rolling with the waves off in the horizon. She can't help but smile to herself as she sees how happy they are, splashing and playing in the deep blue that reminds of her so much of Sonic.
Taking the time to actually be children for once.
"Y'know, one day," she announces, holding up her index finger as if she is declaring a matter of great importance, "I'm gonna take lessons from Tails on how to swim. And when I learn, I'm gonna teach you."
Sure, she was the tiniest bit jealous that she and Sonic weren't out there swimming and good-naturedly soaking each other. But getting Sonic to come within a 50 feet mile of even the smallest body of water was as difficult as fitting Eggman in any standard sized human apparatus, so she'll take what she can get.
"Huh?" Sonic perches the sunglasses above his eyes as he glances sideways at his companion. "Sorry Ames, did you say something?"
Amy's hand twitches and Sonic's easygoing, sand sculptured smile is turned into a jagged frown.
"Nothing important."
"Well, of course you said thank you," Sonic folded his sunglasses and placed them in the sand beside him. He crosses his arms in a mock offended manner at her. "I know it may not seem like it at times Amy, but I do pay attention to you."
"Remember when I brought you those flower seeds you had asked for, for your garden? Or when we started going over kickboxing and self defense lessons? You said thank you each time!"
Amy was grateful for the fact that Sonic glossed over the fact that her "thank yous" generally devolved into intelligible, high pitched squeals whenever it was him completing a favor for her.
Amy tries to correct the Lovecraftian sand creature that her sketch of Sonic's face had become due to her mistakes but only succeeds in continuing to mutilate him, and in frustration sweeps the sandy image away completely as it starts to resemble one of Cream's crayon drawings stuck on Vanilla's refrigerator.
"I appreciate it Sonic, I really do!" Her heart flutters hopefully in her chest at his admission, and she turns to him, nodding her head so vigorously it hurts a little.
"But... I meant, uh, in general."
The constant flow and recession of the waves, punctuated by their respective best friend's laughter, provides a serene feel to their conversation.
"This is the perfect setting for a romantic movie..." Amy thinks, her mind transporting her to a dreamlike land where Sonic runs alongside the edge of the beach, unafraid of the ocean. In his arms is one Amy Rose, laughing as the water is kicked up in glittering plumes by Sonic's strides. They run off into the sunset together, bird cries echoing softly in the distance.
"In general?" Sonic parrots back at her, head cocked to the side in confusion, and Amy's rom com delusions fade away.
"Well..." Amy tugs anxiously at one of the quills secured by her headband, eyes flitting around to the beach. She sees Rouge and Knuckles situated on their own (shared, Amy notices with a small twinge of jealousy) beach towel. Rouge takes a short respite from dangling a grape over Knuckles' waiting mouth to coquettishly wave at Amy and give her an encouraging wink.
"Right, right, I'll remember your advice Rouge. 'Be yourself, but less so.'" Despite the older woman's helpful intentions Amy feels slightly unclean as Rouge makes even feeding look… suggestive.
"Are you talking to yourself again?"
The young girl shrinks back as she suddenly finds Sonic's nose within centimeters of her own. She resists the urge to yelp as she realizes how often she had caught Sonic unaware.
"W-what made it so obvious?" Her quillls are askew in exasperation.
"You were using your normal speaking voice. Loudly."
Amy plops down in the sand in a crestfallen manner (looking somewhat hurt) and Sonic wonders with a twinge of guilt if he might've been a bit too forward wit his words and had hurt her feelings unintentionally.
Which seems rather easy to do, he laments inwardly as he fights the urge to roll his eyes. If she's not running after me she's moping around like Tails does when he discovers we're out of mint candy and suddenly life has no purpose anymore.
His eyes zone out on his best bud floating on his back with no cares in the world and he can't tell if he's more jealous of Tails having no fear when it comes to water or no worries when it comes to pre-teen girls.
It was probably a bit of both.
"Oh, come on Amy, I didn't mean it like that." He tries gingerly, wondering if this brief bout of sadness will upswing into a mallet into the face event. Which would really be too bad as they'd gone for months without one.
"I just can't seem to do anything right around you," she manages as she wipes away the tears she had been trying to hide- which was really trying to fend off a tropical hurricane with a broken umbrella where Amy's crying marathons were concerned because they were fast and furious.
"Cause when I first went to Tails, he agreed that maybe you don't appreciate us enough, and I said 'Maybe we should do more things to get him to appreciate us' so we were trying to help you out and I think we just got in your way," she said without taking a single breath.
"And then Knuckles told me 'there are other fish in the sea'," she says as she crosses her arms over her chest and deepens her voice and Sonic smiles at her impression, "which I thought was ridiculous because the only fish I want is a Sonic fish and then Shadow just kinda glared in my direction and occasionally nodded or mumbled something insulting when I talked to him and Rouge said-"
Amy's words were jumbling together at a light speed pace that was too fast for even Sonic to comprehend. He put his hands up in front of his face as if to ward off the invisible force of her breathless surge of words.
"Woah woah woah Amy, just slow down a little." Sonic smiled inwardly at the two words he never thought he would use in a sentence but his eyebrows raise in skepticism, "Wait a second… you went to Rouge for help? ROUGE?"
Amy felt slightly under fire from Sonic's incredelous tone. "It was girl stuff!" She responds defensively as she puts her hands on her lap. "And she told me I should be myself but less so and I wondered, 'Well how am I supposed to do that?' because being around you always makes me happy and excited and I can't just act like I don't want to be around you because I feel so much better about myself when I am!"
The look on Amy's face as her words pour forth suggest that even she is surprised at what she said. The stunned silence between the two is punctuated by the laughter of their respective best friends as they tumble in the waves, the cawing of the seagulls and the occasional shout of one frustrated red echidna yelling about how "that stupid batgirl ate the last grape."
Amy's hands begin to play with the golden bangles around her wrists and she wonders if she might've overstepped an invisible boundary.
"it's just…" she hesitates at first, "my life on Little Planet before I met you was so… different." Her voice drops a little along with her head as if she was ashamed.
"I spent every day wondering when something, anything would happen, when I'd get to go off and have my own adventures. I looked at my tarot cards everday hoping for a prosperous fortune, wishing to the stars, 'Please please oh pretty please be the day when I get to make a friend and show them what I can do.'"
"And then you showed up! Everything was such a blur, it was so fast and exciting and even a little scary, but…" she looks out at the ocean, "I got to do so much because of you."
"I made my first friends, Tails, Knuckles, Cream," she mentions with a little laugh.
"I know how it feels, heart pounding and head racing, when we're fighting Eggman's robots and we don't know what'll happen next, and it's exciting even if it's a little scary," Amy nods earnestly and her face is glowing as she recalls all the moments she'd fought by Sonic's side.
"I've seen huge jungles with towering trees and big airships and giant tentacle monsters made of water. I can run really fast from chasing you… there's so much I owe to you Sonic."
She looks at her scrawl of Sonic's face, now a hodge podge of ridges and furrows in the sand.
"That's what I wanted to say thank you for…" without really thinking, Amy takes the index finger of her left hand and starts to draw a small heart. She completes the outline of Sonic's face inside it and starts on her own next to his. "…for everything you've given me the chance to do and see."
Her right hand is resting in the sand idly inches from Sonic's. She starts to curl up her fingers and move her hand away from his, realizing that she probably said too much.
"As always," she thinks glumly, planning to spend the rest of the night watching her favorite soap operas and crying into her Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, until she suddenly feels warmth and the steady grip of another hand.
Sonic nods at her, his larger hand engulfing hers as he squeezes tight. His green eyes light up and he smiles that cocky smile that she's grown to appreciate so much.
"Well, Amy, you're welcome."
And Amy finds his grin so infectious that she can't help but smile back and giggle, the sound of her merriment blending in with that of Tails and Cream as they splash about and Rouge's mirthful amusement as she glides about the beach with Knuckles in hot pursuit.
Perhaps this one time, she said just enough.