Incest
Disclaimer: I don't own Jack! And Jack doesn't own anything Sonic related either! XD
It's almost 2:00 am here when I posted this, but I had just finished it finally and it's been way overdue because of my unfortunate health recently, so I decided to go ahead and get it over with. This chapter turned out much larger than I thought it would originally, but I'm actually glad that it did since I now would be hard pressed to find a single sentence that I would actually erase. For all you readers who are skeptical based on what you read for chapter 1, I hope that this new chapter will be much more enjoyable for you. And to everyone who already liked where this story was going anyways, it just keeps getting better for you, too! I'm sorry that I won't leave a list of all my reviewers for last chapter this time, but it's early in the morning and I'm still not feeling fully healthy yet either, so you'll have to forgive me. Anyways, read and review, but mostly, enjoy!
Chapter 2: Full House
"Oh great," Tails muttered audibly as he glanced at the horizon beyond the cockpit of his beloved X-Tornado. "That doesn't look too good."
"What's not too good? Are we going to crash?!" a panicked voice shouted out from the seat behind him as Mystique instinctively cringed against the possible impact that could take place any second now.
Tails heard the sharp tone of horror from his passenger behind him and reminded himself again that not everyone took flying as relaxing of a hobby as he did. "No, I'm sorry, Mysty! I didn't mean that we were in any trouble, at least, not yet," Tails quickly calmed down the frightened female passenger as he pointed out the large domed canopy towards the skies to the North which were slightly ahead and to the left of their current trajectory.
Following his pointed finger out the glass canopy and to the horizon, Mystique saw the source of Tails' obvious concern. Building in the North over the sea which connected to the Mystic Ruins was an ominous-looking storm that appeared to be barreling straight towards them as it grew ever stronger. Lightning pierced through the angry, dark clouds with such a frequency that the soft sound of the approaching thunder was more of a continuous rolling noise rather than a series of loud booms. "Will we beat it?" Mysty instinctively questioned Tails as she began to dread the thought of being forced to fly through such a menacing storm with a pilot that she hardly knew.
"Don't worry, my X-Tornado can beat anything, except maybe Sonic!" Tails both boasted to himself and comforted her at the same time. "Besides, we're already here anyway."
Mysty replied to this by looking out her window on the other side of the canopy as the X-Tornado banked around to approach Tails' workshop on the side of a cliff overlooking the sea. She witnessed a long, black, metal runway with palm trees lining either side which ended in a small hangar immediately adjacent to a decent sized, two story home built into the hillside. As she continued to take in the beauty of the house and its surroundings, Mysty was surprised to see the palm trees lining the runway tilt away from the center as they cleared the way for the sleek jet to land. Clearly Tails was an expert pilot as he managed to set the plane down perfectly without so much as a single jerk when the landing gear contacted the ground, and the X-Tornado throttled down to idle safely inside the hangar at the far end of the runway near the house.
"There, that should do it!" Tails spoke to himself as he maneuvered the custom fighter plane perfectly into place and made sure that everything was powered down properly. "That wasn't too bad, now, was it?" he checked with his noticeably silent passenger.
"N… No. You're a really good pilot," Mystique again stuttered as Tails unhooked his harness and popped the canopy lid. Fiddling with her own harness, she was suddenly embarrassed to see that the belt would not unhook from her waist as she tugged harder on the stubborn restraints.
"Here let me help you with those…" Tails offered his assistance as he extended both hands to free her from the unresponsive harness.
"NO!" Mysty yelled as Tails quickly reached down to grab the malfunctioning buckle over her chest.
Tails was startled by the sudden scream and fell over backwards in his seat that he had been standing on, bashing the back of his head against the dashboard of the X-Tornado in the process.
"Oww!" Tails yelped in pain at the large bump that he received on his noggin for his efforts to be chivalrous.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Tails! I didn't mean to make you hit your head or anything," Mysty realized her mistake and instantly started to apologize for it.
"It's OK, Mysty," Tails replied in a voice of compassion rather than the anger that she had expected from Tails. "After what you went through today, I don't blame you for not trusting guys very much, but you can trust me, honest!"
"How did you…" the dumbfounded female vixen wondered aloud as she contemplated how Tails could have seen through her so easily.
"It's fine, Mysty. Now, come on before the storm gets here!" Tails broke in as he stepped quickly down the small footholds that allowed easier access to the cockpit for those who couldn't fly by themselves. Fighting once more with the seatbelt harness, Mystique finally won and followed Tails down the side of the airplane with an eye still open for trouble. As he lead her outside again from the hangar to walk the short path to his house, Mystique finally found the nerve to speak up again.
"Umm… ah, Tails?" she tried to ask something important from him.
"What is it, Mysty?" Tails helped to loosen her tongue with his acknowledgement of her, as of yet, unspoken question.
"I… well, you… I mean… ooohh…" she found herself unable to ask what was on her mind. However, now that she had already made it known that she had a question to ask, Mystique knew that she had to say something. "Well… Umm…why do you have all those fake palm trees on your runway?" she came up with the first thing she could think of off the top of her head as she mentally berated herself for being so shy.
"You noticed that they were fake?!" Tails spoke as he stopped in his tracks just before opening the door to his house. "Most people can't even tell the difference up close, so how did you know they weren't real?" he sought a good explanation for her uncanny observance.
"How could someone even think that they were real?" Mysty unexpectedly lost her shyness as she started talking freely about the subject she obviously cared about. "Those palm trees are supposed to be Cocos Nucifera, right? Well that particular genius of Arecaceae only has one distinct species, and it is only found in tropical climates. Based on the large amounts of deciduous trees growing on this hill around your house, though, I can tell that this is more of a temperate climate, which means that the trees must be fake because they couldn't survive here if they were real."
Tails stood stark still as he listened to her explanation. "Wow, I've got to be the smartest person I know, but you just used a lot of words that are new to me! Could you maybe explain that a little easier?" Tails asked nicely as he scratched the back of his head in both confusion and embarrassment.
"Oh, sorry," Mystique realized that she had lost Tails entirely with her detailed scientific analysis. "I just meant to say that it's too cold here for palm trees like those to grow."
"OK, I got'cha!" Tails replied as he understood now what she meant by her earlier rant. "How did you learn all that stuff about palm trees in the first place, Mysty? You sounded just like a pro!"
"No, I'm not that good, Tails," Mystique quickly denied the praising comment. "I just learned a lot about plants as I grew up because I spent a lot of time in parks."
"So, you're kinda like a… what… Oh, right, botanist!" Tails remembered the proper name for a person who studies plants.
"Not really, Tails, I never went to college to get a degree or…" Mysty again tried to bury the evidence of her own hobby.
"You don't sound like you needed it to me," Tails spoke with a slight chuckle. "I actually like plants too, but probably not the same way you do." After mentioning this, Tails' face noticeably sagged a bit as his innocent, happy smile faded away for a moment. In the blink of an eye however, Tails looked joyful again as he changed the topic. "Anyways, let's get inside now. I think that storm's getting closer."
Indeed, Mysty noticed that the wind had already picked up and the dark, ominous clouds were making quick headway towards the cliffside abode. Without any more delay, she followed Tails through the door to his home, noticing for a split second that Tails hadn't bothered to lock it when he left his home earlier that day. She couldn't tell if that meant that Tails was a forgetful person or if it meant that any neighbors around here were drastically different than those she was more accustomed to. Searching the comfortable house with her eyes, Mystique noticed that it was somewhat spacious and cozy. Unfortunately, most of the table tops and counters were a little cluttered and the overall decor seemed focused more on functionality than appearance. Although the place definitely showed that a woman's touch had not encountered it for quite some time, possibly never, Mystique found it to be rather cleanly as far as most single men's abode's went, an opinion which she was all too qualified to make given the number of examples it was based on.
"Sorry about the mess," Tails said over his shoulder as he walked past Mystique and into the kitchen beyond the living room into which the front door had admitted its guests. "I really wasn't expecting any company besides maybe my friends, and they don't mind that I'm a little sloppy."
"No, it's fine," Mysty quickly responded to keep from possibly insulting her host as she slowly followed him into the kitchen, taking in the sights of the house as she went along. "I've seen worse," she accidentally let the unnecessary addendum to her reasoning slip as she immediately hoped that it hadn't been audible.
"Really? How many others have you seen?" Tails innocently asked the logical question to follow Mystique's last remark.
Mystique stood perfectly silent in the doorway to Tails' kitchen that she had gotten to before her slip of the tongue. She had somehow known that Tails would have asked that, and it made her wonder all the more why she hadn't left her earlier compliment well enough alone after the first sentence. Hearing the question posed to her so bluntly, and the questioner so clueless to its impact on her life, Mysty didn't even try to respond as she instinctively averted her eyes from Tails own.
"Look, I'm sorry if I…" Tails began to apologize again.
"No, you don't need to be sorry for anything," Mystique quickly closed the subject as an awkward silence ensued before Tails returned to what he was doing in the kitchen.
"Dinner may take a little bit. Normally I just have to cook for one," Tails commented as he pulled out a Ziploc bag and a box of breading from the refrigerator and a nearby cabinet. "You can use the bathroom upstairs to clean up a little if you want to," Tails suggested after remembering the somewhat filthy state of her fur, especially that on her large tail.
Mystique didn't take offense at his remark, as a matter of fact, she was glad that he had given her permission without her needing to work up the courage to ask him for it. One thing did keep her from moving to the stairs leading from the living room to the upstairs floor, though. "Wait, Tails, you can cook?" Mystique wondered out loud. She had never really seen a male that could produce anything even resembling being edible before.
"Well, yeah… I kinda have to know how to cook since I live alone now," Tails replied in a voice which suggested that he didn't think male cooks were a strange occurrence at all. "It's not all that hard really; I just follow the instructions on the box for the most part," he explained. "Oh, that reminds me! Are you OK with having chicken?" Tails remembered to be courteous and ask for Mysty's preference.
"Anything's fine with me," Mystique answered truthfully. With her lifestyle, food that was barely even recognizable could still pass for a decent meal. Tails could be frying up road kill, and she would be satisfied, especially since the events of the day had distracted her from her usual mid-afternoon lunch scavenging. Today was planned to be another hit and run from a local hot dog stand down the street from where Tails happened to find her. Just thinking about food was a mistake, however, as her empty stomach immediately let loose with a hungry growl.
"I guess I'll take that as a double yes!" Tails joked after he heard the loud noise from Mystique's smaller belly. "Don't worry, I'll try to hurry while you can wash up or whatever women are always spending all that time in the bathroom doing," Tails attempted to reassure Mysty after noticing that she was beginning to blush from her stomach's loud protest.
Mysty once again didn't see the need to object to Tails' clichéd view of women behavior. After all, she usually didn't have that much makeup herself, so her own time spent in a bathroom was normally not very long at all. Following Tails' directions, she proceeded up the stairs in the living room and walked down the upstairs hallway until she reached a slightly roomy bathroom with both a shower and bathtub joined together along one wall. Closing the door and locking it behind her, she finally allowed her muscles and nerves to relax that she hadn't even remembered were still tense until now.
Tails heard the faint sound of the water turning on to the bathtub one floor above as he continued to prepare several pieces of chicken fillets by adding the breading mix and shaking the Ziploc bag containing the chicken vigorously. After a few seconds, and a now thorough coating of the seasonings on the chicken, Tails then transferred the breaded meat strips onto a baking sheet which he shoved into the already warming oven. "I don't see how anything's hard about tha…" Tails began congratulating himself before a loud crash made him almost jump out of his skin in fright.
Recovering slowly from the terrifying and sudden noise, Tails still could feel his whole body shaking. A short series of similar, but thankfully less severe, booms where now heard coming from outside the fox's home. "Oooohh… I hate storms!" Tails objected to himself while the noises from outside continued unabated to the fox's disdain. "You'd think that after all these years I'd have gotten ov…" he tried to carry on a conversation with himself before another deafening peal of thunder frightened him to the point that he hunched over and covered his ears to try and block out the noise. Whether it was this action or the high volume of the menacing thunder outside that caused Tails to miss the door to his house open and then close again quickly is unknown, but the figure that had just let itself into the scared fox's home wasted little time announcing his presence anyways. Dashing straight into the kitchen upon locking the door shut behind him, the unexpected newcomer greeted the doubled over kitsune.
"Gee, buddy, I thought that storms didn't bother you that much anymore," the blue hedgehog mentioned as Tails immediately recognized the voice and looked up again.
"Sonic! What are you doing here right now?" Tails asked the first question to come to mind, momentarily forgetting about Mystique in the process.
"Heh, same reason I always drop in unannounced all the time, bro!" Sonic replied quickly in a jovial voice while flashing Tails a quick thumbs up to help jog the fox's memory.
"Oh, Sonic," Tails instantly got the hint as he slapped one of his hands softly on his forehead in an act he had heard of being called a 'facepalm'. "What did you do to make Amy mad at you this time?"
"Funny you should ask, bro," Sonic, still rather jokingly, gave Tails the story. "I was just up there workin' on the roof for the new wing on our house, right? Well, I couldn't find my hammer for nailing in those shingles anywhere, so I guess I decided that I'd borrow Amy's for a while," Sonic concluded as he scratched a blue spine behind his head in mild embarrassment.
Tails' large blue eyes grew slightly as they betrayed the kitsune's confusion. "But… I don't get it, Sonic. Why would Amy get angry at you for that?" Tails asked as he was certain that he had missed something from what Sonic had certainly meant to be funny to the younger fox.
"You're right, bro. Ames wouldn't ever get mad at me for just that," Sonic quickly added as a mischievous smile betrayed that he was hoping Tails' curiosity would bring up that exact question. "Me borrowing the hammer isn't what got Amy all steamed; it's what I did with it after I borrowed it that made her hit the roof, literally!" Barely had the blue hedgehog managed to mutter these words through his growing smile then Sonic burst out laughing in the middle of Tails' kitchen.
"Sonic! What did you do?" Tails didn't join in the laughter just yet since he was more concerned over understanding the events that had taken place before he accompanied Sonic's laughing fit. Even if Sonic wanted to respond, however, he never got the chance as at that very moment a loud pounding was heard on Tails' front door.
"Uh oh! Gotta hide, little bro!" Sonic instantly stopped laughing as he quickly ducked behind the long counter which separated the kitchen from the living room.
Tails sighed to himself as the pounding on his door continued and Sonic motioned for him to answer it to get the person he knew it was to go away. Nope, not much has changed in two years, the fox thought to himself as he plodded up to the door and opened it wide to the figure standing outside and knocking. Tails immediately stepped back at the sight of the figure in front of him. Amy stood with hammer at the ready in the driving rain from the full-blown hurricane it seemed was happening outside. She was covered in a red aura of sorts due to her intense anger, which coincidentally seemed hot enough to literally vaporize the rain as it fell on her body, giving a brand new meaning to the term 'steamed'. "Umm… H… Hi, Amy!" Tails stuttered as the wrathful Amy forced her way inside his home.
"Don't just 'Hi, Amy' me, Tails!" the irate pink hedgehog yelled. "I know you're hiding him here somewhere! Show me where he is right now, or so help me…!"
"Amy, please, calm down!" Tails begged as he wondered from the thousandth time why he was always forced to put up with this. "What did Sonic do this time?" he asked in hopes of getting the full story from Amy since Sonic's version had been rather cryptic.
"What did he do this time?!" Amy repeated Tails' earlier question as if it was ridiculous that Tails couldn't already have known the answer to it. "That blue saboteur used my hammer to try and fix the roof on the new addition to our house!"
"But, isn't Sonic helping out with building your guys' house a good thing?" Tails asked Amy the same question Sonic had dodged in a way earlier.
"Not the way he decided to 'help'!" Amy shouted the answer. "He tried to use my giant hammer to hit those small nails up there and ended up knocking the whole roof down, RIGHT ON MY HEAD!!" Amy's voice crescendoed until she practically screamed the last part.
Tails, upon finally getting the full story and also realizing what Sonic meant about Amy literally 'hitting the roof', found himself totally unable to keep from laughing. He sunk down on his knees as he laughed so hard that eventually the fox ended up rolling around on the carpeted floor in his living room with tears streaming down his face from the pain of such uncontrolled laughter. He could tell that his endless laughing wasn't making Amy any less angry and that he might really catch it good from her this time, but Tails was still unable to stop himself as the mental image of Sonic hitting the roof of a house with Amy's hammer and the roof collapsing right on top of Amy as a result kept playing over and over in the kit's mind. Tails might have kept on laughing until Amy smacked him over the head with her hammer, too, except that at that moment a tremendously loud crack of thunder sounded off directly over Tails' house that froze his laughter more efficiently than a dip in liquid nitrogen might have been capable of.
"Yipes!" Tails shrieked in response to the massive thunderclap as he instinctively curled all his arms, legs, and tails into a tight ball of fur on the floor of his living room in terror. Amy instantly calmed down considerably as she dropped her hammer gently to the floor to reach out and comfort the frightened kit when her ears caught the faint sound of someone else still trying to stop laughing as well that came from the kitchen. Leaving the quivering fox cuddled up in his protective ball for a moment, Amy stealthily reacquired her hammer in her tight grip and strode silently to the front of the counter separating the living room from the kitchen/dining room combo. Then, without any warning whatsoever, Amy swung the mallet full force over the low counter and down the length of the opposite side located in the kitchen. Her sneak attack seemed to succeed wonderfully, too, as Tails was brought out of his tight fetal position to the sound of a loud, "Whump!" and Sonic's lamented cries.
"OOWWWW!! Man, that hurt, Amy! What are ya tryin' ta do, kill me?!" Sonic retorted in a somewhat less than good natured manner.
"Oh, come on, Sonic! That couldn't possibly have hurt more than having an entire roof come down on your head!" Amy instantly shouted back, her anger from earlier instantly reaching its previously dangerous level.
"OK, OK! Look, I'm sorry, Amy! I didn't do it on purpose! Ya know that, right, Ames?" Sonic somewhat more calmly answered as he felt a large lump on his head with his hands.
"Oh! So you think that just because you act all sweet and innocent that I'm gonna forgive you and just let this whole thing slide, huh?! Well, I've got news for you Sonic the Hedgehog! I…!" Amy tried her best to keep hold of her fury, but Sonic's last words had already taken all the heat from the internal rage that had kept Amy furious up until now. "I… I… Ohhh, Sonic! I'm so sorry! I love you too much to stay mad at you for something as silly as a little accident!" Amy spoke as she dropped the hammer and dashed up to embrace Sonic tenderly.
Tails watched as the two hedgehogs embraced and shared a quick kiss. Two years ago, this would have seemed like something so absurd that it may have made Tails lose his lunch. As it was, the public display of affection still left Tails' insides churning a little as he witnessed it happening right in front of him. Yes, it had actually happened, and Tails actually felt fine about it now despite his concerns when it had occurred. Not long after the Metarex were finally defeated, the Blue Typhoon returned to Mobius, and Christopher Thorndike had gone back to his reality once more, Sonic and Amy started to finally get serious about their relationship. Tails still didn't have a clue why, but for some reason Sonic no longer felt like he should constantly avoid the obsessive Amy unless he was in trouble, and the two quickly fell truly in love. Or, perhaps Sonic finally just fell in love with Amy, seeing as how the pink hedgehog had chased the blue hero for who knows how long now. Either way, not more than a year ago they had made it official. Tails had been Sonic's best man in a grand ceremony that had finally joined the two hedgehogs together in wedlock. Now a married couple, Sonic stayed at Amy's small, one room, domed house as they both worked fervently to convert the tiny cottage into a dream home fit for a married couple and, someday, possibly a family. That was why for the last year or so Tails had lived in his home all alone now, without the blue hedgehog he was always with and still considered a brother to share the large house. He got lonely at times, yes, but Sonic had always taught the young fox well how to deal with sorrow and stress by just getting outside and enjoying nature on a pleasant jog. It worked wonders for him, especially when his thoughts would turn back to… her.
"Yo! Mobius to little bro! Are ya OK, buddy?" Sonic slightly startled Tails as the blue hedgehog's sudden hand on the yellow fox's shoulder tore Tails away from his daydreaming and back to reality again.
"Oh, yeah, I'm fine, Sonic," Tails quickly gave the automatic response as he gave a light shake to his head to clear out the remaining thoughts that had plagued him momentarily a minute ago.
"That's good, bro. I thought that maybe that last bit of thunder might have scared you senseless," Sonic quickly added as Tails was left to question whether he had just attempted to make a joke and failed, or if Sonic was voicing a true concern. "But, uhh, I guess we've got a question to ask ya, little bro," Sonic again spoke up before Tails could decide. "It's lookin' pretty bad out there now, Tails, so do ya mind if me an' Ames spend the night?"
At any other time in his life, Tails knew that his instant response to this question would have been a complete and total 'yes'. However, Tails' mind chose this exact moment to suddenly remember the vixen which was now bathing upstairs and began giving Tails mental nightmare scenarios of what would happen if Sonic and Amy found out about Mystique's presence. "Well, Ummm… I, Uhh… I guess…" Tails began stuttering as he quickly tried to weigh the risks on either side of the unexpected situation.
"Is something wrong, Tails?" Amy perceptively noted as she too seemed thrown that Tails hadn't instinctively agreed to the simple request.
"NO! I… I mean, of course you can stay! I just wasn't expecting guests, or else I would have cleaned things up a bit," Tails lied as he wracked his brain to figure out a good way to introduce Mysty to both Sonic and Amy when the inevitable time came. The fox knew that he couldn't possibly keep her a secret from them all night, Sonic and Amy both were far too observant for that. A fact that became all the more clear as Amy casually walked into the kitchen to see what Tails was cooking at that moment.
"Oh, good! It looks like you decided to make extras tonight already, Tails," Amy commented as she noticed enough food in the oven for more than one person by far.
"Yeah, you must have known we were comin' already, bro," Sonic spoke up as well as he glanced over towards the kitchen table which was laid out with silverware and plates for two already. "Except, ya might want to set a place for yourself to eat too, bud," Sonic joked to Tails with a quick wink.
"Well, Sonic, actually I…" Tails started to begin the tough explanation as to why they would now need four plates instead of Sonic's proposed three when a softer voice from the stairs behind him caught everyone's attention.
"Tails?" Mystique called from the stairwell in a voice filled with as much terror as it held confusion.
"Whoa there, little bro! Who's she?" Sonic shifted immediately into brotherly protect and teach mode as the sudden appearance of the stranger from upstairs caught everyone off guard. What frightened Sonic the most, though, was that this female fox, who was clearly very attractive and even more so now after her recent bath, already knew his little brother's name.
"Sonic, wait, please! I… I can explain!" Tails begged as he quickly rushed over to stop Mystique from fleeing back up the stairs and hiding herself somewhere.
"You'd better start talkin' fast, bro," Sonic threatened in a somewhat cold voice at the implications of what he and Amy might have suddenly stumbled upon by accident.
"No, Sonic! It's not like that; I swear!" Tails shouted as he now realized exactly what Sonic and Amy must have thought about the current revelation, and Mysty's and his possible relationship. "I just found her being beaten up by some thug in an alley when I went to the city today, and I offered for her to stay with me for the night because she said that she didn't have a home to go back to."
"Likely story, Tails!" Amy yelled as she quickly joined Sonic standing side by side halfway across the living room from where Tails now stood holding Mystique's shaking hands. "I can't believe you! All this time, and you've had something like this going on right under our noses! How could you…?!" the pink hedgehog just started to get herself worked up again until Sonic unexpectedly cut her off.
"Wait, Amy," Sonic commanded, but in a tone which made it almost sound calm and more of a request, one which the now once again angry pink hedgehog luckily obeyed. "Tails has never lied to us before, has he? Besides, I know my little bro, and Tails would never think of doing something like that behind our backs," Sonic convinced Amy in a surprisingly sensitive voice.
"But…! Ooohh, I guess you're right, Sonic," Amy admitted as she placed down her hammer that she had unconsciously summoned to pummel the fox duo.
"Sorry 'bout that," Sonic apologized as he now shifted his gaze from Amy to the mysterious new stranger which was currently scared enough to be almost stopping the circulation in Tails' hands with her grip. "How about we try introducing ourselves again? I'm Sonic the hedgehog, Tails' big bro, and this is Amy Rose, my wife."
"Your… big brother?" Mysty tentatively asked Tails as she shifted her gaze to stare at the yellow fox next to her that was the only one keeping her from dashing out the door and into the maelstrom outside.
"Well, not officially, of course," Tails explained as his free hand again went back to scratch the rear of his head in his tell tale sign of humiliation. "Sonic and I are actually best friends, and I've always thought of him as my big brother ever since he saved me when I was little."
"Saved you?" Mystique again asked as she realized that Tails must have a very interesting life story indeed, one that could possibly even rival or at least match her own.
"It's a long story," Tails politely refused to go into that much detail at the moment. "Maybe I'll tell ya later."
"Umm… OK," Mysty decided that it would seem rude to press the issue in front of so many people.
"Well, now that ya know who we are, what's your name?" Sonic brought back the question and answer introduction.
"My name's… Mysty," the still somewhat frightened vixen responded. Tails made a mental note to himself how scared she seemed to act around Sonic and that she had only given him her nickname instead of her full name, 'Mytisque'.
"Well then, it's good to meet ya, Mysty," Sonic said with a smile as he held out a hand for a simple handshake in greeting. The female fox, however, refused to take his hand and instead took a half step back when Sonic offered his to her. "What's the matter? Did I say somethin' wrong?" Sonic asked once he witnessed how his innocent handshake proposal affected Mystique.
"No, I'm sorry, Sonic," Tails answered for the shaken vixen. "She's just been really shy all day after I found her. I think that guy who beat her scared her a little so she's uncomfortable around men now."
"The poor thing," Amy spoke in genuine compassion. "What was that man doing with her in the alley in the first place, though?" the pink hedgehog posed the interesting question.
"I'm not sure, and I don't really think Mysty likes to talk about it either," Tails again answered for the speechless vixen. Mystique gave a quick nod of her head to say that she agreed with Tails and didn't want to talk about the day's events at that moment. The awkward silence which then followed probably would have continued for some time except for the delicious aromas that now began wafting softly through the air into the noses of the living room's four occupants. "I think that means the chicken's ready now," Tails was the first to state the obvious. "How about everyone find a seat while I get it out of the oven?" he proposed to break up the uncomfortable group.
Fortunately, his tactic worked as Sonic and Amy quickly turned around to head into the kitchen and Mystique followed a little ways behind. Tails had already dashed in there ahead of everyone and wasted no time in setting places for him and Mysty at the kitchen table before removing the expertly cooked breaded chicken from the hot oven. Within minutes, everyone was now seated at the small kitchen table with a fair amount of food on their plates and their preferred drinks in the glasses in front of them. Tails sat next to Mysty on one side of the table while Amy and Sonic sat side by side on the opposite end. Everyone ate silently for a while, especially Mystique who seemed to be very careful and polite with how she ate.
Finally, however, Sonic tried breaking the long silence in between bites of chicken and sips of cola. "So, where're ya from, Mysty?" Sonic innocently asked the now somewhat calmer vixen across the table.
"I… I don't really know," Mystique found the courage to respond now that she got used to the idea that anyone as nice as Sonic and good enough to be Tails' best friend would never try to harm her either. "Actually, I don't even know who my parents were or anything else other than just growing up as a child," she clarified the limited extent of her own knowledge.
"That sounds kinda familiar if you ask me," Amy blurted in with a voice of skepticism meant as a joke.
"What does she mean, Tails?" Mystique couldn't help but ask immediately as she noticed that Tails let out a slight chuckle at the remark.
"Amy's talking about me, Mysty," Tails explained. "Until a little over two and a half years ago, I didn't know a thing about where I was born or my parents or anything."
"Really? Then how did you find out later?" Mystique quickly placed down her silverware as she turned her full attention towards Tails again in hopes for more information out of him at last.
"Now that's a really long story!" Sonic interrupted from across the table as he started snickering to himself at his timely comment and managed to get smiles from both Amy and Tails as well.
"Well, Sonic's right, Mysty. That is a pretty long story, but let's just say that by the time everything was said and done, I knew pretty much everything about my parents, my birth, and my two tails," Tails summarized as he gave his namesakes a slight twitch at the end for emphasis.
"You've got a pretty weird looking tail, too, if you ask me," Amy suddenly remarked as she directed her observation towards Mystique and her larger than usual single tail.
"Well… I…" Mystique couldn't quite find the words to respond as Amy's quick observance actually hit home in a part of the sensitive vixen that she wasn't ready to reveal to anyone yet.
"Amy! That was rude!" Tails immediately jumped to Mysty's defense as he saw her reaction to the pink hedgehog's comment.
"What?! I didn't try to hurt her feelings! All I did was say that she had a big tail!" Amy responded once she noticed that Sonic also had given her a stern and slightly shocked glare.
"Still, you could have said it a little bit nicer, Am…" Tails almost finished his sentence when another loud peal of thunder cut him off and made the scared kit drop his fork from his hand and almost into his drink of soda.
Mystique, having been upstairs the whole time the storm had come through earlier, was surprised by Tails' somewhat extreme reaction to the natural noise generated by the large storm outside. She now understood why Tails had seemed apprehensive about the approaching storm on their flight in earlier this evening. Watching the yellow fox slowly regain control of his shaking hands from the small fright, Mysty finally realized fully that Tails was a real person just like her. After all the treatment that she had received from men over the years, Mystique had actually stopped seeing males as anything other than a walking storehouse of violence and testosterone, but Tails and his abundance of similarities to her own life now convinced her for the first time in quite a long while that other people had also gone through some rough times, had a strange and undiscovered past, and had weaknesses and problems of their own like hers. Unconsciously, that observance of someone other than her being terrified for once changed Mysty's overall reason for coming to Tails' house in the first place. What she had intended would just be a meeting for information, Mystique now found herself fleetingly wishing for something a little bit more, like… a relationship? Quickly realizing in a split second that she was lost in her own crazy thoughts and still staring at Tails, Mystique covered the momentary lapse in her guard by shoving another good sized piece of chicken into her mouth.
"Ya know, bud," Sonic failed to notice Mysty's curiosity towards Tails as the blue hedgehog saw the event as just another ordinary part of knowing Tails on a close level. "After all we've been through together over the years, you'd think that ya wouldn't be so scared of storms by now."
"Yeah, I know, Sonic," Tails spoke almost dejectedly as he consciously willed himself to stop shaking. Then a sly grin worked its way across Tails' face as he shot back with a brilliant comeback, "But you'd also think that after all this time you'd have learned how to swim, too!"
Everyone at the table burst into laughter at this witty response, everyone except Mystique, of course, who was extremely puzzled by the joke which only someone who knew Sonic could understand fully. "Nice one, bro!" Sonic congratulated Tails on the expert rebuttal. "Seriously, who teaches ya these?!" the blue hedgehog kept the fun rolling with his hypothetical question.
"I wonder who…" Amy sarcastically replied anyways, adding a few more chuckles to the dying laughter around the table as Mysty still sat there silently in a lost confusion as to the meaning of the obviously supposedly hilarious comments.
Seeing Mystique's puzzled reaction to all the fun and laughter around her, Sonic and Tails each took turns informing her about the background to those last jokes, while also reminding each other of some other memorable moments that the two had had together in the past. Amy seemed to stay distant in the conversation and almost took the part of an observer which gauged Mystique's every reaction to the boys' conversation with a critical eye. Mysty noticed Amy's unwavering glare as the two men continued on, but was able to shut it out by paying careful attention to the slightly exaggerated stories the two were telling instead. Finally, supper ended and Sonic and Tails decided that they had done enough reminiscing and joking around for one night. Quickly, then, the subject changed to sleeping arrangements for the night since the violent storm outside was still continuing on unabated.
"How about Sonic and I take the guest bedroom upstairs and Mysty can have the sofa?" Amy proposed.
"Are ya really bein' serious about that, Amy?" Sonic asked in genuine surprise at the borderline rude suggestion.
"Of course I am," Amy replied in a well feigned ignorance of her crass request. "The guest room used to be your old bedroom anyways, right, Sonic?"
"Yeah, Ames, but still…" Sonic began to object before he was cut off by Tails.
"No, Sonic, that's OK. You two take the guest room, and Mysty can have my room. I'm fine on the couch for tonight," Tails, always the peacemaker, settled the arrangements for the night.
"No way, bro," Sonic unexpectedly objected as Amy and Tails were both slightly shocked at his refusal of the reasonable terms. "This is your house and your bed, Tails, so you should get to sleep where you normally do. And, since Mysty is your guest, she can have the guest bedroom, too. Amy and I came over uninvited, so we'll take the couch."
"But, Sonic, the couch is a little small for two people, and I don't really mind…" Tails tried to convince Sonic to allow him to be the one to sleep on the relatively uncomfortable sofa in his typical manner of serving everyone but himself first. Sonic, however, was trying to fight this exact behavior from Tails and quickly put his foot down.
"No, bud. Me and Amy will take the sofa tonight, end of story," Sonic somewhat sternly debated with Tails.
"Well, OK, I guess…" Tails figured that the point was now non-negotiable and gave in to Sonic's strange demands. "Just let me get some blankets for you and Amy first."
"That's fine, bro, but we know where they're at. You go ahead and get Mysty all situated and go to sleep yourself; we'll be fine down here," Sonic all but shoved the two fox's upstairs with his somewhat forceful, but still generous, manners.
"Umm… OK, Sonic," Tails simply agreed as he then silently lead Mystique upstairs again and showed her to the spare bedroom next to his that was once used by Sonic over a year ago. Luckily, Tails thanked himself, it had been since then cleaned and redecorated somewhat to be more accommodating to others in the off chance that someone other than Sonic ever had need of it like right now.
Meanwhile, downstairs Sonic and Amy pulled out a few spare blankets from a slightly buried closet and proceeded to lay them out on the large sofa downstairs while also each keeping a trained ear on the noises coming from upstairs. Amy was the first to break the silence with a short sigh as Sonic glanced down from the roof above him to his wife straightening the sheets in front of him. "What's the matter, Ames? You know that Mysty deserved the guest room more than we did, right?" Sonic asked whether Amy had caught the unspoken reasoning behind his forceful refusal of Tails' bedding arrangements earlier.
"No, Sonic, I know why you did that," Amy spoke without turning around to face him.
Sonic noticed how see wouldn't look him in the face while she talked and grabbed Amy's shoulder to gently spin her around so she would. Amy pretended to be angry at Sonic's bold maneuver at first, but it faded quickly as she made the mistake of looking into his probing green eyes. "You don't like her, do you?" Sonic blatantly came out with the answer and question both to Amy's slightly off behavior tonight.
"No, I don't," Amy spoke softly in a tone that left her sounding somewhat ashamed of her snap judgment of Mystique. Quickly, she tried to rationalize out loud to Sonic and herself why she felt that way, "It's just that… Ohhh, Sonic, you can tell, right? She's a tramp! I mean, didn't Tails say that he found her in an alley today while he was in the city? Sonic, there's only two kinds of people that live in those alleys, and neither of them are very good for Tails, I think!"
"I know, Amy," Sonic slightly startled Amy by agreeing. "I'm not too sure about her either."
"Then you and I need to convince Tails to get rid of her!" Amy quickly began forming an alliance to expunge the potential threat. "I mean, she could be a thief or a murderer! What if tonight…" Amy began her wild speculating.
"If she's a dangerous murderer, then I'm an extra long chili dog with cheese," Sonic objected. "No, I'm more worried that she might be something else, Ames," Sonic admitted.
"Like what?" Amy tried to reach the answer for Sonic's last statement by guessing, "A homeless bum? A gold digger? A prostitute?" Amy stopped guessing after her last statement when she noticed Sonic's facial expression change slightly as if stung by the word.
"Any of those, really," Sonic admitted as he sat down on the now bedded couch and seemed halfway lost in his own thought.
"That's just a better reason for us to get rid of her!" Amy softly raised her voice as she wondered what Sonic had to think about when the proper course of action was so blatantly clear.
"It's not that easy, Amy," Sonic spoke in a tone that Amy was unused to hearing from Sonic as the blue hedgehog stared her in the eyes again. "Couldn't ya see it when he was standin' there with her and introducin' us before dinner? I think that this girl, Mysty, needs my little bro, and he might even need her, too."
"Now you're getting almost as delusional as Vector and Knuckles!" Amy voiced her protest as she couldn't believe what Sonic was implying.
"Why else would Tails volunteer to take her home with him, huh, Amy?" Sonic answered her stiff response by giving her the same reasonable doubt which he now felt. "And you saw the way she acted around us. Mysty is afraid of strangers, so why would she agree to come to some random guy's house for the night?"
"Maybe it's her job to do that, Sonic," Amy venomously returned as she saw Sonic's nonsense as an obstacle to protecting Tails' well being.
"And maybe Mysty is Tails' last chance to ever find love again, Amy," Sonic, instead of the usual angry remark, instead replied in a serious and thoughtful tone.
"You can't seriously think that a scamp like her could take the place of Cosmo!" Amy blurted out in shock as Sonic quickly brought her voice back down and hoped that no one upstairs had heard Amy say that name.
"Shhhh… No, you're right, Amy, I don't think so. But, I can sense that those two have a lot in common with each other, too. I think it's better if we let their relationship grow first until we can be sure whether or not it's a good thing," Sonic wisely suggested.
"You're actually serious?" Amy asked in amazement as she saw the look of sincerity in Sonic's eyes as she now sat down next to him on the sofa.
"I care for my little bro more than anyone in the world, Amy," Sonic told her softly. "I would never let anything hurt him again like has happened to him before with Cosmo. Trust me."
"Well, OK. But tomorrow I still think it would be a good idea to learn more about this Mysty," Amy finally gave in as the two hedgehog's snuggled close to get both of their bodies on the sofa together and wrapped the loose end of the blanket back down and around their exposed bodies. Just before they both drifted into a comfortable sleep, however, Amy had one last thing to ask Sonic. "Sonic?" Amy softly whispered into one of his large blue and tan ears.
"Yeah, Ames?" Sonic sleepily replied.
"You said earlier that you cared for Tails more than anyone else in the whole world, right?" she softly reminded him.
Sonic caught the hint, however, and quickly laid Amy's fears to rest along with both of their tired bodies. "Everyone but you," he romantically answered before the two hedgehogs settled in to sleep.