"Aw. You're so cute when you pretend to be mad."
"Who says I'm pretending?"
Sonic lovingly gazes across the little sitting room at Amy, whose eyes are playfully narrowed back at him.
"I'm furious. Fierce."
"No doubt about the second one."
"Sweetie, I'm literally seconds away from biting you."
"Yeah?"
"Just barely restraining myself."
"Kinky!"
She growls, earning a beaming smile, kick-starting her heart with delight.
"I'm okay with encouraging this mood swing."
She radiates something gentle despite her attempts at looking cross.
"Man, being married to you is a trip I don't wanna sober up from."
"Husband, you never let me win."
"You like a challenge, wife."
"I dunno what I'm supposed to do with you, quite honestly." She redirects her glare at the offensive board game, reaching to tap thoughtfully at her chin. "My strategy was so well thought out. Am I simply bad at this game?"
"It was a magnificent strategy, babe. And you're the best."
"Then why do I always lose to you?"
"I've never beat you at arm wrestling, if that helps."
She blows air out the corner of her mouth, stirring an errant quill by doing so. "Yup, it does."
"Then, shall we?"
"You really think you're off the hook that easy? Sweetie, please."
He suddenly throws his arms open, rising from the plush chair opposite. "C'mere."
"No, I'm sulking." She does nothing to resist as he skips around the low table and slips onto her lap, taking her into a smothering embrace. "Mmph."
"I love you."
"Unfair." She hugs him as fervently, then, burying her head beneath his chin. "You know those three words, when strung together like that and said by you, are my single greatest weakness."
On their family outings, Vector feels the most like an outsider. He wishes he didn't stand out so much. A sore thumb. An oddity.
Vanilla has told him to pay the stares and whispers no mind. Interspecies romance isn't a taboo. It's been long enough for society to come to grips with certain parts of itself.
And yet he feels a little stiff seated at the table, smiling distantly as Cream relays a funny story, his gravelly sounds of amusement contrasting jarringly against Vanilla's soft giggles.
Cheese helps, though. He stuffs bread into his mouth and attracts at least some of the persistent, unwanted attention.
"Oops."
The absurdity of this declaration is enough to draw Rouge's attention from the cake base, fresh out of the oven and clearly overdone, disappointed aquamarine meeting with amused rubies.
"At least you tried."
She projects her lower lip, which trembles for sympathy.
"There, there." Shadow places his hand on her shoulder. "Baking isn't one of your developed skills. There's no shame in failure."
"Gee, thanks a bunch."
A reassuring pat assuages her, until he purrs in a manner designed to provoke, "You're no Amy Rose, after all."
"Bet you wish otherwise, huh?"
He smirks, patting his best friend again, watching the bat's playful indignation slowly die, replaced with good-natured resignation.
"You lovable asshole. You're lucky you're cute."
The dark hedgehog inclines his head agreeably. "That I am."
"Well, then." Returning to the ruined cake, Rouge takes off the thick oven mitts and tosses them onto the marble countertop, hands then setting on her sturdy hips. "I say we scrape off the crunchy bits and slather the rest in caramel. Good enough for a weekend binge."
"I'm sure it'll be delicious."
"It better be. You're my Guinea pig and you're gonna try it, first."
"Surely, you wouldn't poison a prince."
"Delicious, now poisonous?"
"It can be both."
"Whatever it is, whoever you are, I'm the queen, honey. I do as I damn well please." A feminine rumble of indignation. "Also, how dare you?"
Shadow chuckles quietly.
"I baked a whole cake by myself. Myself!"
"I'm proud of you."
"Are you, really?"
"I'm certainly not proud of your cake, now, am I?"
"Utter cheek. It's because I don't discipline you enough."
Before he can react, she seizes a dish towel and tosses it over his face.
Blaze's head feels so heavy on her royal shoulders. But her people come first. Silver does not. She never has.
Another handsome young man is calling, today. He vies for something more than her polite distance, hoping to beguile her with a chat about empty, expensive things as they amble through the garden.
She moves with grace and poise that they say flows within her hot blood, but is actually just behaviour she has memorised within her muscles. She has grown to know and understand that she is no different from her friends and in no way above their fight for freedom.
The flowers only remind her of a garden amidst ruins in a future that is not hers.
Back erect, tail careful not to irritably swish and thereby shatter her air of indifference, she allows her hand to stay stilled, calmly grasping her suitor's bent arm without burning a hole through the rough sleeve, as he makes the unknown mistake of plucking a flower, passing it to her, a romantic platitude.
"For you," he says, as if to add weight, to add meaning, as if he isn't stating the obvious and patronising her.
She smiles without actually smiling. It's a practiced expression designed to obscure and console.
Silver wouldn't pick flowers, for fear of killing. He, too, believes that all living things can feel pain. Due to his own mistakes, he has tried so hard to be kind.
"This is all I want."
The stone is silent because Knuckles is supposed to be full.
Rugged hands support a lengthy snout as he rests his head, amethyst eyes imagining figures in the glow. "You're enough for me," he says. "I'm your guardian. You're all I need. This is it."
It emits warmth, which he knows, but as he is rendered numb to it, he feels none. It's less scary since it happens from time to time, when he remembers the absence of voices aside from his own.
"You are it." He isn't complaining, though. This is his destiny. It'd just be nice, he thinks, to have a little company tonight. But he has no choice and so there is no reason to miss them. Helplessness is comforting, in a way, for a mind that rarely dares probing philosophy and shimmering romanticism and challenging tradition.