Chapter 4: A Little Push

It took Sonic exactly ten minutes and three broken vases to calm Amy down—which might not sound as much, but it was definitely a more difficult feat than destroying the Dr. Eggman's robot of a week.

And now he was doing the even harder part—trying to convince her that the mark on his neck wasn't a hickey at all.

"Really, it's a bruise! Nothing more, Ames—"

"Then where did you get it?" she asked, still doubtful of it truly being just a bruise and not a hickey. It looked like one and she refused to let somebody that was not her put such horrible marks on her hero.

"Shadow did it," the blue hero replied, deciding to give her at least a half-truth. "He accidentally hit me in the neck in self-defense when I sneaked up on him. I'm definitely not making that mistake again."

Shadow sent him an amused look at this remark, which Sonic answered with a subtle glare; he still planned to have a word with the ebony agent that such behavior was not acceptable. If the press caught even a glimpse of the hickey, they would immediately start to investigate who had given it to him—and he definitely wouldn't appreciate having his house surrounded by a-gossip-writing journalists that would most likely come up with a story of him dating some actress or something.

"Oh..." Amy let out in surprise, which immediately changed into shame just a moment later, her cheeks confirming this by turning a dark shade of red. "I-I didn't know. I'm sorry for making such big deal out of it."

"You're forgiven," Sonic replied, choosing exactly those words to signify he didn't wish to speak about this anymore. Which he truly didn't want to. "Everybody makes mistakes sometimes. So let's forget about it and get back to preparing lunch, alright? You said you want me to cut the vegetable, correct?" he asked already reaching for the bowl he had put away earlier, but which was snatched by Amy herself even before his hands could even touch it.

Amy gave him a big smile, already moving back to the kitchen counter. "Leave that to Shadow! I need something else from you!" she said as she set the bowl down on the counter and then took some kind of list off it, luckily, not noticing the annoyed glare she received from Shadow for throwing more work at him; Sonic really wasn't in the mood to play the role of peacemaker for the two.

"I need you to take me to the nearest shop so I can get these herbs." Amy showed Sonic the list, the hero quickly looking over the words written on the paper. "You don't have them here and I can't prepare the lunch without them."

"Well, maybe you could take a look at the back garden first," Sonic suggested, pointing at the said area through the kitchen window. "Tails grows a lot of plants there so it's possible he has those herbs as well—and fresh are always better, right?"

"I guess I could," she murmured, tapping her chin thoughtfully as she pondered the idea in her head for a second. A moment later a short, "Be right back!" left her as she turned around and left the kitchen to search the garden for the required herbs.

And Sonic was once again left alone with Shadow.

And somehow he found himself pressed against the kitchen counter by the ebony hedgehog just a moment later.

(Was it just him or was Shadow seriously picking up a bad habit of pressing him against stuff? Because so far it was twice a wall, a forest ground, a workbench and now even a kitchen counter...)

But even thought this was already the fifth time in the last three hours that he had gotten cornered by Shadow like this, this was only the second time he felt truly uneasy about it.

However, apart from the first time where he had been worried of what would Shadow do, this time he was anxious about what he himself could possibly do if he let Shadow do whatever he pleased.

After all, the almost incident from a half an hour ago proved pretty clearly his self-control wasn't as great as it should be. If he lets Shadow get 'close' again, he might not be able to resist him this time. Which he has to, because otherwise they could end up doing something that would irreversibly ruin the fragile friendship they had now.

And so Sonic raised his hands and firmly pushed against the other's strong chest, forcing the other hedgehog away before the agent could even try something. This, of course, made Shadow look at him questioningly, crimson eyes immediately filling with mild confusion and curiosity.

It didn't take genius to figure out that Shadow was wondering why he had gotten pushed away before he even could have tried something when Sonic hadn't done so any of the times before.

"Alright, Shad, it seems it is the time to reintroduce you to the term known as 'personal space'. You used to be very fond of it before this whole affected-by-serum thingy—"

A dark eye-ridge rose at the seemingly random remark, but otherwise Shadow didn't do anything else and let him speak. Sonic quite welcomed this gesture of cooperation as he really would like to avoid having to resort to violence while dealing with the drugged hedgehog; he still felt little bad about biting Shadow the first time, though it was undoubtedly necessary back then and he judged that they were somehow even with Shadow giving him a hickey. But while Shadow's tongue must have been fully healed already given the ebony agent's enhanced healing, unfortunately for him the hickey could stay for days.

Which reminded him, he really needed to scold Shadow for that.

"—Personal space means keeping at least an arm length away from other people so they won't get uncomfortable because of you," Sonic explained in a haste, giving a strong emphasis on the 'uncomfortable' part to subtly inform Shadow that his constant attention to his self wasn't exactly appreciated. And when Shadow's lips pulled into a frown just a moment later, Sonic presumed the agent had understood his hidden message.

"Also when we are now on the topic of what makes people uncomfortable—" The hero was vaguely aware that he was beginning to ramble at this point but he really needed to get this over with before Amy's return. "No other hickeys. I don't care how amusing you find Amy running around the house, destroying my stuff in search of 'you'." Sonic made a quotation marks with his fingers, Shadow's scowl deepening at the same time for some reason. "I'm not willing to deal with any journalists that may find my hickey as something worth investigating. I have to deal with the press making up gossips about me on daily basis, so there's no need to give them an actual fuel."

Shadow opened his mouth, clearly planning to say something in response, but just then Amy appeared from behind the corner with empty hands that wordlessly explained she hadn't found what she wanted.

So the ebony agent closed his mouth again, the hero guessing that the ebony agent knew he wouldn't appreciate Amy learning that the mark on his neck was truly a hickey and thus was keeping the comments to his speech to himself for now.

Amy sighed as she walked over to the two of them, giving them an odd look when she noticed how unusually close they were standing. However, she didn't comment on it and instead she started taking her apron off. "Your garden doesn't have what I need. I'll have to buy it. Could you, please, take me to the grocery store, Sonic? It would take me at least two hours if I had to make the trip on my own," she said, both knowing that with his extraordinary speed the trip to the shop would take twenty minutes. Tops.

"Uh, sure," Sonic replied, turning towards Shadow to ask him to not follow him for once, but the ebony agent threw him for a loop before he could even utter the first word.

Because Shadow said, "I stay," and then wordlessly walked back to the stack of potatoes that still weren't peeled and then resumed his work without another word or a look to them.

Feeling uneasy about this sudden change of attitude of the ebony agent, Sonic frowned, not sure what to think about Shadow suddenly letting him go alone when he was so adamant about staying around him before.

Should he be worried about this?

"Well, then let's go! We don't have all day!" Amy urged him when he continued to stare at Shadow, confused and wondering. At first he didn't budge but when Amy gave another tug to his arm, he snapped out of his pondering over what could possibly be going on in the other's spiky head and turned to her.

The pink female gave him a big smile and then she began to drag him out of the kitchen once more. With a last curious look to the ebony agent who didn't pay any attention to them even now, Sonic turned around the corner and let himself be lead towards the main door. However, just as he reached for the door handle so he could open the door and then hold it for Amy like a gentleman, a quiet cough from said female alerted him he shouldn't do so yet.

Questioning green eyes turned to look at Amy, who now looked a little nervous for some reason. "Maybe you should hide that bruise first before we leave the house. You know, just so somebody wouldn't jump to conclusions like me if they spot it..." she explained and vaguely gestured to his neck, obviously feeling little awkward about bringing the topic up again.

Sonic could honestly say she wasn't the only one feeling that way around here. However, apart from her, he didn't let it show and just said, "Oh, sure. Give me a minute!" and then ran upstairs into his bedroom.

He rummaged through his drawers until he found a simple brown neckerchief that he immediately took out of the drawer. Planning to tie it, he raised the neckerchief up to his neck and turned to the mirror that was hanging on the wall. However, just then, he was struck with curiosity about what the hickey that had angered Amy so much actually looked like. And so he let his hands droop to see how bad it really was, a big frown stretching across his face when he saw it.

It would be a surprise if somebody did not spot it.

The cobalt hero looked over the dark mark again, realizing he truly couldn't leave the house before hiding it somehow. Therefore, he quickly wrapped the neckerchief around his neck, tying its ends into a knot at the back of his neck so it wouldn't fall off. He checked himself in the mirror to make sure the piece of cloth was covering his neck fully and only then, he ran back downstairs and finally left the house with Amy in tow.

All the while wondering why he had the feeling that the hickey's purpose was to have some significance rather than being just simple means of amusement for Shadow.

O-o-O-o-O

"I could just make pasta," Sonic argued but Amy seemingly didn't listen to him, too preoccupied with choosing the stalls with best looking vegetables and striking a small chat with the vendors.

Like she had been doing for past forty-five minutes.

"And what is pasta best with? A tomato sauce made from fresh tomatoes!" his pink companion announced after a brief pause, proving wrong his belief that she wasn't listening to him. Then, once she paid for a bag of the aforementioned red fruit, Amy walked over to him.

Sonic was sure she could easily see he still hadn't found his enthusiasm about her idea of stopping by to buy some extra fresh vegetables at the farmers' market—with which she'd came up when they passed it on their way from the grocery store—but she didn't comment on it anyhow.

Sonic frowned slightly. "Well, yeah, that's true . But we really need to return back—Shadow might be calm at the moment but we still don't know if the serum won't—"

"Stop worrying about Shadow! He can take care of himself—and if anything happens, Tails is there with him!"

Sonic sighed. That's what I'm worried about. Shadow was unpredictable at the moment—there was no guarantee he wouldn't suddenly snap and go on a murderous rampage like he had already done before. The agent's temper wasn't something to rely on at normal occasion, who knew if it wasn't even less stable now when the strange serum was controlling his brain.

"Ames, we really need to—" Sonic started but was immediately interrupted by said female herself as she said, "Give me a minute!" before reaching into her boot and taking out a vibrating cell-phone, which she then flipped open, her green eyes taking a quick look at its screen.

"What a luck! Tails is calling right now! You can ask him how things are going back at home!" Amy announced, practically shoving the phone into his hands before turning around, saying, "Call if you need me!" and then walking off yet again.

Sighing, the cobalt hero watched the female approach yet another stall—this time looking intently at various lettuces, probably judging them and trying to determine which one was the freshest, making the previous ten minutes trip slowly turn into one hour long trip. Sighing once more, the hero forced himself to look away and then finally accept the call, bringing the pinkish cell-phone to his right ear just a moment later. "Hey, Tails, everything still alright at home?"

"Um—yeah! Sure!" was the fox's quick reply, the younger male probably a bit surprised to hear him instead of Amy. "Shadow hasn't been causing any trouble so far," Tails added to reassure his older brother everything was going fine. "I'm just calling to ask how long it'll be until you're back."

Emerald orbs turned to look at the pink female, who was currently animatedly chatting with a vendor, the conversation seemingly more interesting her than the vegetables the vendor had on a display.

"Given how long is Amy taking with each item..." Sonic started, green eyes sweeping over the market place to see how many stalls they hadn't visited yet. "...Another hour probably?"

"Oh, okay then. I'll try to come up with something that'll keep Shadow busy for that long..."

"I suggest asking him to help you clean up the workshop. No offense, but that place is an absolute mess," Sonic replied, recalling the big room littered with all kinds of finished and unfinished projects. "It definitely could use some cleaning."

"Um, I've actually already done that already and somehow it took him only five minutes to clean it all up," Tails muttered quietly, still dumbfounded by how fast the agent had managed the task.

"What?! You're joking, right?" Sonic asked, disbelieving. "There was like thousands projects and some of them were freaking huge and heavy! How on Mobius did he move them?"

"Well, as it seems, he can lift over 350 pounds just with one hand..." the young genius explained quietly, his tone betraying his uneasiness about this fact.

Sonic blinked in surprise at this information. He was aware that beside quick feet, Shadow had an immense strength as well—perks of being created by one of the most brilliant scientist that have ever lived—but so far he had never seen Shadow actually lift anything this heavy. It seemed Knuckles actually had a competition in his field.

With an image popping up in his head, the cobalt hero chuckled. "Oh, Chaos, just imagine the weight-lifting competition between him and Knuckles..."

O-o-O-o-O

Amy let out an angry huff as she glared at the lettuces before her, frustrated that her plan wasn't working. She had asked Sonic to bring her to the grocery store—and then market—so they could spend some quality time together and away from anybody else! But so far the only thing Sonic had done was that he'd repeatedly insisted that they needed to come back because Shadow this, Shadow that—Why was Shadow suddenly the center of Sonic's world?!

She should be the center of his world!

"I know this expression—Your boyfriend is neglecting you, isn't he?"

Amy's green eyes snapped up to look at the vendor who had just spoken. Seeing the human woman was looking somewhere else, she followed the woman's gaze only to see Sonic standing there with the cell-phone still in his hand, bringing it up to his ear just a moment later. The pink heroine then looked back at the vendor who was now smiling kindly at her, deep understanding shining in her dark brown eyes.

Somehow this simple display of emotions was enough to get Amy to answer. "...Yeah." The pink female sighed. "And no matter what I do, he won't pay any attention to me..."

"I may have a solution to this exact problem..." the vendor replied, smiling mysteriously.

The strange response immediately piqued Amy's curiosity and brought back hope of getting back Sonic's attention. "You do?"

The woman nodded and then she bent down, for a moment being hidden by the boxes of vegetables from Amy's view, but once she straightened her back again, there was a tiny glass bottle full of purple liquid resting on her palm. Amy gazed at the mysterious glass container curiously, wondering what could it possibly be.

"A formula to this potion has been passed in my family for generations," the woman started, a prideful look now making its way to her face. "And I can assure you it hasn't failed a single time of the four centuries it has been in use. Just three drops of this potion are enough to make any man desire you so madly that he'll fulfill your every whim the moment you voice it."

"So, it's a love potion!" Amy said, her eyes shining with excitement at the thought of Sonic finally paying some attention to her.

The vendor chuckled. "Well, I don't believe love potion is the correct term but if you want to call it that..."

However, Amy didn't seem to notice the woman's small remark as instead she started to bounce on the spot, impatient to get her hands onto this potion. "How much?"

"...It's free for you," the vendor declared after a moment of pondering, handing her the bottle, which Amy, of course, eagerly accepted.

"Thank you so much!" the pink heroine said, already putting the flask into the hidden pocket of her dress.

The vendor smiled. "Don't use more than three drops, more would cause a big trouble. Do you understand?"

"Of course! "Amy confirmed immediately—but in reality she was barely paying any attention to what was the vendor saying, too preoccupied with imagining the romance she and Sonic could have thanks to this potion. "I'll make sure to use it once I have the chance!" she added and then turned to leave, skipping towards to Sonic and already forgetting the vendor's warning.

It surely wasn't anything important, right?

With a big smile, the female lunged herself at the still phoning hedgehog, who clearly hadn't expected it as a flash of surprise went over his face and in a moment of shock weakened his grip on the cell-phone which then dropped onto the ground, falling apart into pieces upon the impact.

Anxious green eyes stared at the broken device. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Amy! I'll buy you a new one—" the hero began to apologize, but Amy just waved him off with a big smile on her face.

"Don't worry about it, Sonic!" she said, hooking their arms together and then she started to drag him away, not bothered in the slightest by the fact her cell-phone had been just destroyed.

Sonic looked warily at her, clearly uneasy about the fact that she wasn't angry at all and unsure what to think about her reaction—but Amy didn't want to ruin the opportunity, which she had just got, by explaining her reaction and so she simply smiled at him again, saying, "Come on! Let's get back to your house!"

That apparently was enough to divert Sonic's attention as he didn't ask anything. He simply picked her up and broke into a run, the sound of sonic boom and gush of wind the only things left at the market place after their departure.

O-o-O-o-O

With a frown forming on his face, Tails looked over the scans before him once again and then he turned his focus back onto the book about neuroscience on his lap, re-reading the three long paragraphs about hypothalamus one more time.

This makes no sense! the young genius frowned once he finished reading it over for the fourth time, turning his sky blue eyes to look at Shadow, who was currently at the other side of the room trying to remove the door that Amy had damaged earlier as he had instructed him to do. However, because the hinges were damaged as well the door couldn't be lifted free as it normally was supposed to do so Shadow needed to remove the whole door frame—and as it seemed he was in the middle of the process so that left Tails with another ten minutes until he would have to come up with another activity for the ebony hedgehog.

"Hey, Tails, we're back!" Sonic's voice sounded from the back-door, the cobalt hero himself appearing in the doorway just a moment later, his green eyes widening when they saw the perfectly organized workshop.

Letting out an admiring whistle, Sonic looked around the workshop. "Whoa, this place really is spotless!"

"Perfect work, Shads!" he added when his eyes caught a glimpse of the ebony agent by the second door.

Shadow looked taken aback by the sudden praise, for a moment actually halting in his task to send a surprised glance to the cobalt hero who then gave him thumbs up. Shadow stared at him for a moment longer and then, with a snort—which Sonic believe was supposed to translate as something along the lines of 'Of course, it's perfect. It's my work, after all,'—he turned back to the damaged frame, giving no more attention to either one of the heroic duo.

Chuckling and shaking his head at the other's reaction to his praise, the blue speedster shook his head and turned his attention back to the young genius, thus missing the tiny smile that had appeared on Shadow's face right before he did so.

Sonic walked over to Tails, raising a curious brow at the young scientist with book in his lap and what appeared to be brain scans on the monitor before him. "Shadow's?" he asked, assuming Tails might have done those while he and Amy had been out.

Tails nodded. "I've made them right after you and Amy left. The brighter the color the higher the brain activity is in the particular area," the young genius started to explain, setting the book onto the table to have free hands for pointing out specific areas. "As you can see the activity of Shadow's cerebral cortex, especially Broca's area, is greatly inhibited while his hypothalamus is practically in overdrive."

"...and that means...?" Sonic asked, having no idea what did these brain parts actually control.

"Cerebral cortex is where higher thinking takes place—rational thinking and such. Broca's area is place where language formation takes place—its inhibition is the reason why Shadow talks so little now and why he is suddenly incapable of making grammatically correct sentences. With such low activity it's wonder he even is still capable of some kind of verbal communication. Luckily, the Wernicke's area—which is responsible for language comprehension—seems to be only mildly affected so even if Shadow might have trouble talking to us, he won't have trouble understanding us."

Sonic frowned. Why would Eggman want Shadow to be incapable of speaking? Maybe inhibiting Broca's area might have been an error on the Eggman's part and he meant to inhibit Wernicke's? Was that why Eggman had been so sure he would not be able to convince Shadow to refrain from achieving his desire? Because Dr. Egghead had believed the serum would make Shadow incapable of understanding the simplest of arguments?

"And what about that hypo-thingy?" the cobalt hero asked, wondering how that one fit into this all.

"Hypothalamus controls hormone secretion; hormones control all emotions. So theoretically higher activity of hypothalamus should mean more hormones being secreted and thus Shadow should feel more intense emotions and have more drastic mood swings than normally. However, in reality that's not happening..."

Worried blue eyes moved from the monitor to stare at ebony agent, who still had his back turned to them.

"And I have no idea why that is."

[Last edited: 2018-07-01]