STH © SEGA
Sarah, Benjie and Lewis belong to me, BlackPetals23.
Flame, Jeffery, Petunia, and Sunny belong to Phantomask! Thank you, Phantomask!
Alicia belongs to aliciathewolf45. Thank you, aliciathewolf45!
I own nothing in italics if it's a brand. If it's the characters thinking, I guess I own that, I own the story…now I just completely lost myself. Any brand of something = I do not own! Also, any songs mentioned, I don't own.
Enjoy!
Sorry for any mistakes at the bottom, I got lazy and only corrected what the characters said, not the detailing part. And yes, the name for the chapter is…different.
Chapter Twenty-Six:
Silver the Hedgehog…Enough Said
The janitor found them.
And he wasn't a happy bear.
So, when he heard them and saw them on the cameras after finishing his TV show, Sonic suggested they all run like hell towards the hills and most all agreed. Silver was the only one standing in the store trying to figure out what Sonic said.
The janitor opened the cage door and turned his flashlight on in the dark room. Only bags from Old Navy showed themselves, besides crumbs of food and bags of Munchies and soda bottles.
"Show yourself! I know you're in here."
"He's talking like it's only one of us," Manic said out loud from behind the cashier table.
The bear pointed the flashlight to the table and started walking near it. Sonic smacked his lips from behind the black curtain of the window. "Yeah, what's up with that, buddy?"
The flashlight moved to the curtain. The bear walked back to where he started from and opened the curtain. All he saw were mannequins. There was one wearing a purple dress, then there was one that looked like Sonic the Hedgehog and then there was one that had on an orange dress on.
The bear frowned and put the curtain back, making Mike snort inside the changing rooms. The bear hurried over there. Just as he was under the archway a magazine from the coffee table fell to the ground. His light went to the coffee table but nothing was there.
He walked towards the couches, passing other mannequins. There was one wearing a pink dress, there was one that looked like Silver the Hedgehog and then there was one that had on a blue dress.
Shadow was under the couch and with his gloves off he showed his short nails but they were still effective. He scratched the wood, making the bear jump and put the light around the wood.
"Ah, c'mon, man! I can't pay for that!" Mike whined at Shadow.
The bear went back to the changing room where the grey hedgehog was. As he went into the dark hallway and towards other changing rooms, he looked under stall number one. Nothing but hangers of clothes and shoes—red and grey Nike shoes of Mike.
Frustrated, the bear stood straight and headed to stall number three. It was wide open.
As he went in, he heard rustling. Just as his light flashed upon something grey, the door slammed shut and running feet were heard. "Hey!" the bear yelled, opening the door while more footsteps were heard.
"Run!" Mike hollered to his friends, running through the open "door" of the store and out into the hallway of the mall.
Amy and Sarah were right behind him with Cream and Tails. Flame was pushing the stroller while Jeffery was in it with the bags all shoved inside under the stroller in the extra pocket for a diaper bag or, you know, shopping bags while you're in the mall after closing time and being chased by the janitor.
Shadow and Silver were running after Flame while Sonia carried the rest of the bags with her, running as fast as she could.
Flame was right; my body isn't in the best shape!
Manic ran along with Sonic, who was taking his time.
"Where do we go!?" Amy asked, giggling while the janitor ran after them, swinging his flashlight around.
"Come back here!" The janitor wheezed, not in the best of shape either.
Sonic started skipping while he was now next to Sarah and Amy, in between them. As the janitor's flashlight hit them, Sonic grabbed their arms and ran faster.
"S-"
"Shh!" Sonic hissed at Amy. "I don't wanna be noticed!"
"You were playing as a mannequin!" Amy hissed.
"How do we get out!?"
"Guys, stop!"
"What?"
Silver looked around. "Where's Blaze?"
"Benjie and Lewis!" Sarah face palmed. "Mom and Dad'll kill me if they get caught!"
"Where's the janitor?" Shadow asked, looking behind them.
"AHHHHHHHH!"
"I got you now!"
"Run, Benjie, Run!" Silver yelled as Benjie appeared from the dark.
Though it was still dark, the group of friends were still together close enough to see one another. Silver grabbed Benjie's shoulders. "Where's Blaze?"
"I don't know."
"Right here!" Blaze whispered. "Lewis is behind me!"
Just as she spoke, Lewis was right behind her. Sarah sighed in relief. "Thank, God. I was sure I was doomed."
Lewis rolled his eyes but none of them really noticed. "Right…"
"Come back here!"
With ears perked, Flame nodded hurriedly. "I think it's time to go."
"Mike?" Amy asked the grey hedgehog in the lead.
He looked around. "Everything is cut off…"
"What about Sears?" Sonic suggested. "We can just run around the building to the cars."
"Easy for you to say," Flame muttered.
Sonic put his hands up. "I'm just sayin'."
"We'd need a key," Manic told his brother. "Right, Mike?"
"Yeah…"
Cream smirked. "I have an idea…"
"I can't believe of all Mobians, Cream thought of this idea," Tails said in amazement.
"Whatever you do, just make sure your buddy in your pants is down," Shadow warned.
Tails glared as they hid behind flower pots in the hallway. "Where is he?"
"Who?"
"The janitor, who do you think?" Tails scoffed.
"Easy, easy," Shadow warned.
~~~.~~~
The janitor was also a security guard—as Mike had found out.
They were in the basement in the locker rooms; he already had the spare keys to the Sears compartment and was heading out with Sonic.
Everyone else was around the halls of the mall. Their jobs were coming up next. As soon as Sonic took his phone out and dialed Silver's number, they were both on the run to get to Sears.
~~~.~~~
Silver's job was to follow the janitor, and to also change his ringtone back to what it normally was and for some reason, he couldn't get the volume down when he was trying to.
Too late.
Sonic had called him and throughout the halls, everyone heard Milkshake playing once again. The janitor jumped and turned his flashlight to Silver, "Hey, you!"
Silver was gone in a flash, running to the stairs and going up them. The bear was after him just as fast, surprisingly.
~~~.~~~
Finding themselves in a radio store, Manic turned the radio on while Flame looked at the disks around the room.
"These things are ancient," Flame said, pushing the stroller back and forth with Jeffery in it.
Manic pressed a button and suddenly, Mamma Mia started playing.
"Turn it off!" Flame hissed.
"Hey, it's Meryl Streep version!" Manic grinned.
The bright orange hedgehog stood up and pressed the button again, making the music go off.
"Besides," he grabbed a DVD disk and put it in. "This is what should be playing."
Through the Fire and the Flames by Dragonforce played while Flame put on black sunglasses and Manic nodded his head to the fast beat.
~~~.~~~
Sonia shook her head, looking down and moaning, "Oh, no."
Cream plugged her ears as the guitar solo went on in the beginning. They watched as Flame and Manic came out of the shop with Jeffery, how they got in, no one knew.
Amy and Sarah watched from behind the stairs with Shadow and Lewis as Benjie hid by a tree. Flame climbed the other pair of stairs, leaving the stroller with Sonia as he passed her. Manic ran with him and whistled to the janitor.
The bear turned and he saw something he didn't ever want to see.
Flame was lip singing to the song with his stolen sunglasses on as Manic and he danced to the beat as the first verse went on.
Sonia bit her lip, pushing the stroller and grabbing Petunia's hand—who had been squished into the stroller with her brother—while racing to Sears.
"Mommy! What's wrong with Daddy!?" Petunia breathed heavily from all the running.
The second verse of the song was going and Flame was still lip singing.
"Nothing, Daddy's just having a breakdown," Sonia assured her daughter while they got away first, almost running into Sonic and Mike.
"How is this song any appropriate to this situation?" Sonia asked herself as she ran along with Cream and her daughter.
~~~.~~~
"Button, button…" Shadow looked for it after zooming into the open store.
His eyes scanned over everything on that damn radio until his eyes grew up with hate. He started hitting buttons from left to right until finally, the music stopped.
The light on the two idiots on the stairs stayed at them while the janitor pointed at the two. "Don't you dare move."
"Should we listen to him?" Manic whispered to Flame.
Flame looked down to where Sonia was with his kids. "Nah," he climbed down the stairs and the janitor was about to pull something out from his pocket.
Sonia's eyes widened, "Flame!"
"I got ya!" Silver hit the bear like a football player and knocked him to the ground, unconscious.
The white hedgehog looked around as his friends made a dash for it. "Let's go!" he laughed like a maniac before racing down the stairs to meet up with his friends.
As the friends raced out of the mall in the chill night, they were all laughing and breathing heavily.
Sonic looked out at the bright moon. "This is nice."
"I'll never forget this," Flame agreed, slapping his back. "This was one hell of a ride."
"Let's go home," Sonia said. "It's late."
"It's like only eight o' clock," Flame said as they went down the sidewalk. "Where'd we park anyway?"
~~~.~~~
"That was awesome," Amy said as her breath was showing in the truck.
Shadow smirked. "I'll have to admit it, but I must add that I won't ever do that again. That was close."
"But we never got my dress," Amy pouted.
"We'll search somewhere else," Shadow assured her.
Amy leaned against his shoulder, hearing Manic's soft snores. She smiled and looked at him. "I wonder how they got in the store…"
"Manic has been known to steal; it's how he was raised when he didn't have Aleena."
"Right, I forgot about that," Amy remembered. "I wonder how Sunny feels about that."
Shadow's eyes widened. "Oh, shit."
"What?" the rose hedgehog tilted her head.
"Sunny…wasn't she supposed to come by now?" Shadow asked, glancing at Amy as he drove down the highway behind Tails but in front of Sonic.
"Uhhh…"
As the cars pulled up, Sarah's phone said nine o' five at night.
She was definitely busted.
They all were.
Clark was outside on the porch, waiting. Eyes blazing in the night as he watched his kids walk slowly up to him, sooner or later, he stood up and met them halfway.
"You all better have a damn good excuse to keep this lady in waiting."
~~~.~~~
When they got inside, Manic hugged the female hedgehog that was blonde. Her bronze looking eyes were tired but happy to see her boyfriend.
Her wavy, waist length, bleach blonde quills had several silver streaks in it, was in a messy braid. Aleena was standing beside her but as Sonic walked in, she moved over to her eldest son, slapping his cheek.
"Mom!" Sonic gasped.
Amy's ears folded back while Aleena glared. "Where were you, young man? We had company and we didn't know why!"
"We need an explanation," Esperanza raised her eyebrow at him.
"I'm Sunny," the girl said, waving to the smaller group.
"That's nice," Clark said. "But what we want to know is why-"
The door slammed shut and Shadow walked in with a dark expression on his face. Amy was the only one that didn't cower back, though she still shivered.
Shadow dared to confront Aleena even, towering over her. "This is my house, you might be an elder, but all that makes you, to me, is old. It doesn't show how smart you are. She was expected," he motioned to Sunny who was even trembling at the sight of Shadow.
Manic stood in front of her just at his hand motion.
Shadow went to Esperanza. "You don't need an explanation—I pay the bills here, this is my house, and if I'm okay with something, everybody is. If you aren't and need to go into further details, get the hell out of my house."
Esperanza kept her gaze on the ebony hedgehog as he turned to Clark. "Why we weren't here is none of your business. We're adults and we can take care of ourselves. I know you're still a parent of three here but they're adults now, and with us, nothing really wrong could happen on purpose. We wouldn't do anything stupid, now would we?"
Clark swallowed heavily and Shadow growled. "Would we?" he asked again, more menacingly.
"You didn't have to scare him," Amy muttered.
Shadow was dressed in long pajama pants and white tank as he crawled into bed. "Well, they shouldn't be yelling at Sonic like that."
Amy smiled warmly and went over to him, in her washed pj's. She cuddled up to him after turning the lights off. The clocked showed 10:06 p.m. in bright red.
Shadow wrapped his arms around her like usual as she closed her eyes.
"You are his friend, aren't you?"
"Whose?"
"Sonic's."
Shadow smirked. "Yeah, I suppose on some levels."
"You wouldn't let him stray to the wrong path, would you?" Amy asked.
Shadow was silent, staring into the darkness with the only light being from the clock. Amy moaned and waited for a reply. Shadow nodded, leaning his head against her's. "You know, Rose…"
"What?"
"…I think I let him stay here for a reason…"
"Why?" Amy opened her eyes and looked up at him, making him pull away.
Shadow caressed her cheek. "I'll always be his friend or enemy, whichever he wants."
"Why, Shadow?" Amy begged.
"Sh," the ebony hedgehog shushed her. "Go to sleep."
"Shadow," Amy whined but submitted to the male.
~~~.~~~
11:43 p.m.
I can't sleep…
I've been awake since she fell asleep…
I can't stop thinking about this. Why is it so normal? Just for her to do this…I'm going crazy.
She comes in here and I like it. She lies beside me and I like it. She cuddles me and I don't do a damn thing about it…because I like it. It's just so normal yet we've only been on, like, two dates. I'm sure this isn't normal for most people…
At all.
I can't just man up and tell her. Tell her all these feelings inside me. At times, she's frustrates me, but most times she's making me fall for her.
It feels like a tether between us. Like some rope that connects us. And if I tell her…I'm frightened…that she won't be on the other end anymore. Like she'll just disappear into thin air. And I don't want to lose her. Of all the girls I've hooked up with just because they wanted to because they were desperate fangirls, I've never felt like this.
Amy isn't a fangirl of mine though…which makes me even more scared that she doesn't find me as a love interest at all.
I'm too afraid…for once.
Someone has finally made me afraid of something. And that someone is Amy Rose. And I don't know what to do about it.
I'm confused.
I'm lost.
I'm in love.
11:44 p.m.
~~~.~~~
12:09 a.m.
So beautiful…
Sonic stared down at Sarah who was in his arms. Well, technically, she was faced away from him and in the fetal position basically while he had his left arm over her head and his right down to his side and over the bed.
I just hope Shadow does something about his feelings and soon…maybe being away a week will show him how much he belongs with her.
Sarah tossed lightly, turning over to face Sonic. The blue hedgehog was looking up at the ceiling now, though.
He does need her—and everyone knows it. Shadow needs someone like her; she's optimistic, funny, beautiful…
Sonic swallowed heavily, biting his lip.
Amy deserves someone like him. He's rough on the outside…but even I have gotten to his soft heart.
If I hadn't met Sarah, then I would've been chasing after Amy instead of Shadow. I'll admit it. Amy's grown and she's so much more now. She's…what any guy would want…even me. But to me, there's always someone who'll beat her.
Sonic smirked at Sarah, who had her feet curled up. Sonic's feet touched them and he shivered. Why did women always have to be so damn freezing while sleeping and he was sweating like a pig?
Maybe it's Sarah's independence that I like. I'm sure Amy could be just the same though. Maybe it's because Sarah speaks her mind—whether rude or not. She's honest whereas Amy tries to be kind unless she's angry, then she'll go all out on her choice of words.
I don't know, but I've made it very clear…I love 'em both.
…I just wonder if Ames still has that hammer…
12:10 a.m.
~~~.~~~
2:59 a.m.
Foooooood….
Silver lied on the mattress, his eyes wide open while he listened to Blaze's gentle breathing.
…I wonder if Shadow has ice cream…
I've been craving ice cream…
Blaze was cuddled up to his chest, keeping the blanket tight around them and an extra one for warmth since it got cold.
What time is it?
Silver glanced at the clock. It ticked…slowly…
Ugh…
Okay…only…five-ish more hours until it doesn't seem weird that I'd get up and eat…
Blaze moved, moaning in her sleep. "Silver…"
She said my name…in her sleep…
God, I hope she's having a good dream about me. Because I have to admit that sounded weak…like I was torturing her or something.
I would never torture her. Unless it was…
Silver got out of his thoughts as his stomach growled.
UGH! Foooooood!
He whined and whimpered for a second or two before looking at the clock. The arm was almost over one more…almost…
3:00 a.m.
YES! Four more hours…
Benjie watched his brother in his sleep. The two were in sleeping bags on the floor.
Lewis twitched in his sleep, ripping one.
Benjie covered his nose with his eyes watering.
Does he have to fart now!? RIGHT NEXT TO ME!?
Lewis rolled over on top of his brother. Benjie stiffened and coughed out for fresh air.
He shows no mercy! This is like the time I was twelve and we shared bunk beds! UGH! I wished he'd taken the bottom…
Lewis rolled off of him and Benjie glared at the ceiling. Why did it have to always lead to him? Pin him against the wall?
Benjie scowled.
I dislike sleeping next to…
Benjie slowly turned his head to Lewis.
YOU!
~~~.~~~
Shadow's ears twitched to movement. But it wasn't from his precious flower. He nuzzled her ear and tried getting back to sleep when he noticed the movement stopped.
But there it was again.
Shuffling, clanging of glass. Shadow frowned, hiding his face in Amy's quills.
The sound would NOT stop though. He growled and tried pinning his ears back to his head to block out the sound but no prevail.
Amy moaned, blinking her eyes open, "Shadow?"
The ebony hedgehog pulled back suddenly and let out a small gasp. "Sorry, Rose…"
She smiled tiredly but was cut off by another sound. Shadow grimaced at his door and glanced at the clock.
6:50 a.m.
Shadow sighed and got out of bed, leaving Amy to sit up in the bed, watching him leave.
When Shadow went down the hallway, the sounds were quiet. He stopped and the sounds quickly came back. He frowned and tip-toed past everyone sleeping—he didn't even notice the one missing on the mattress, leaving Blaze sprawled out everywhere.
Shadow leaned against the archway of the kitchen with a smirk on his face at the sight. Silver was rushing around the kitchen, getting food out.
He took peanut butter from the shelf and grabbed some bread from the counter. He had the jam and hot dogs from the fridge out along with Shadow's fruit salad.
The ebony hedgehog's eyes narrowed.
Wait a minute…MY fruit salad!?
Shadow walked silently and quickly to the bowl and picked it up, standing behind Silver who was leaning into the fridge to find whatever else looked good. When he turned around with the milk jug, he gulped.
"Morning?"
"You couldn't wait until seven when everyone was up?" Shadow hissed quietly.
"It's seven," Silver pointed to the clock in the kitchen.
"That clock is ten minutes fast," Shadow stated.
Silver glanced at it like a worried kid that had gotten into trouble—which he kinda did. "No…that clock in the living room is ten minutes slow."
"No," Shadow said with raised eyebrows. "This one is."
"That one is."
"This one is."
"I'M HUNGRY!" Silver wailed.
"When are you not?" Shadow rolled his eyes, shoving the hedgehog to the side to put the bowl of fruit salad away.
"What's goin' on?" Sarah walked into the kitchen with a large T-shirt on and pajama pants.
Shadow and Silver glimpsed at one another before pointing at the other and staring at Sarah. The lime green hedgehog stood there, frozen. She didn't know what to do, much less what to think.
"Ummm…"
Her eyes glanced to the counter of food among the things listed before.
"Uhhh," her gaze darted back to the two male Mobians. "I uh…"
And then the rest of the "family" decided to join in and squeeze their butts through the door simultaneously just to see Shadow and Silver pointing at one another.
After Sarah left for work along with Sonic again, the group filed in and ate breakfast.
Amy, Shadow, Manic, Blaze and Silver took the table while the others left them be. Silver sighed and finished off his bacon. "Man, I'm glad you guys woke up."
"Yeah, you would've starved," Shadow answered sarcastically.
Silver glared softly at him but stood up and put the plate in the sink. He stared down at the mountain of dishes. "You know, with two moms in the house that are probably over the age of fifty, you'd think they would put the dishes away."
Shadow put his in and patted the white hedgehog's shoulder. "Either that or they were gonna tell you to do it."
Silver chuckled and followed Shadow out of the kitchen. "That's funny."
He was only pushed right back in.
Shadow smirked. "What I meant was, "Do the dishes.""
Silver stuttered and blabbed nonsense like an idiot. "But-But."
"The only butt I wanna see is-" Shadow cut himself off while Silver stopped and gave him a knowing smirk, "Nevermind."
~~~.~~~
"So, what are we gonna do?" Blaze lay down in Silver's lap after he washed the dishes.
Shadow shrugged, watching TV in the rocking chair while Amy sat on the mattress next to Manic playing Skip-Bo.
"We could always disturb Sonic," Silver said. "I mean, we can't disrupt Sarah, she'll get mad at us."
"And Sonic won't?" Amy snorted, rolling her eyes.
"Nope! He's Sonic!" Silver cheered.
Sunny came out of the bathroom with a towel around her quills and fresh clothes on, she smiled at them shyly. "I took a shower, I hope you don't mind."
Shadow shook his head but Silver wanted to tease someone. "Uh, I do. Amy needed that because she stinks."
Amy glared at him but Silver shrugged at her. She turned back to Sunny only to have Silver state, "We probably need to change her diaper too."
Blaze rolled her eyes. "Ignore him."
Sunny laughed but Amy's eyes had flames in them. "I'm trying to," she said with gritted teeth.
They were silent until Silver smacked his lips again.
"So…Where's does Sonic-Pooh work at?"
"You are one hell of a friend," Sonic growled at Shadow behind the counter of Tractor Sales, Inc.
"I thought so too."
They watched as Silver shuffled through shelves. Everything seemed too dusty for the white hedgehog. (I crack myself up! XD)
"Hmmmm," Blaze looked at a scale that was different from any other scale she had seen in her whole life.
It had weights on it from one to five and the one pounder was about as big as her palm. She shrugged and placed it on one side of the scale that was always pointed up thanks to all the scales behind on one side.
Amy looked around the store while Sunny and Manic were looking outside the window.
It was in Elkridge. The town that contained the school where Sarah worked at. The school wasn't even a mile down the road from the tractor shop. Next to the shop were houses, trailer houses and then a cemetery. After the cemetery, there was a small field and a couple houses right next to the school.
Everything thing was together, basically.
Past the school there was a church and some more trailer houses, not to mention another tractor store, Agri-Service and a post office along with a rental building that used to be a restaurant. Those three things were across from the church on the right side of the road.
Down further were four more houses, two right past the intersection next to the church that were across from each other and then past a field there was a good lookin' house put up against a…not so good lookin' house. Then there was another gas station and some silos on either side of the road. Then there were the small fairgrounds/rodeo grounds with the playground and red and white building in the front. You could barely see the rodeo arena past the tall trees.
There wasn't much of a fairground there, there weren't ever any rides there but bouncy castles…then again the people in all three small towns were more into rodeo and riding horses since they were cowboys and cowgirls.
Past that there a canal and then some motorsports store and some more fields and houses before you were driving through hills and towards the town fifty-eight minutes away.
Back to Tractor Sales though, it was a small shop. It had three garage doors that were built tall enough for tractors to get through in the back.
Sonic and the guys just called it a shop for some reason.
So far, there were only two things in the back and that left the third one for piles of wood Sonic would get from the tree line each time they'd run out. There usually wasn't anything in the third compartment in the garage, only a pile of wood that reached the ceiling.
Up front, there was an old marbled counter with wood on the side. The counter went in an 'L' shape. So if you look at that 'L' right now and imagine yourself walking in, you'd see the long side of the 'L' as the counter in front of you. The short side was combined into the wall and had a fax machine. A square archway was right behind the counter and that led to aisles and aisles of parts someone might need.
It was dark in the back in those aisles, Amy figured out. She also noticed a chess board with other games in it. She grabbed it and walked out. "What's this?"
"That's not mine."
"Whose is it?"
"Ian's. He's not here though, he's in Michigan for a month," Sonic stated as he watched from the stool behind the counter as Amy walked around and put it in front of Sonic, sitting across from him on a red, new stool that had the logo.
Sonic glanced up at her. "I take it you want to play…"
Amy grinned and nodded her head. Sonic sighed. "I don't do chess, but I can do checkers."
"We should teach her the bolt game," Shadow smirked as Amy set up the checkers.
"The what game?" Silver poked his head over the shelves easily.
"The bolt game," Shadow said. "I don't know what it's called, I just know we use nuts and bolts and the loser has to buy the winner a drink or candy bar."
Sonic nodded. "Shadow used to work here with me and this old guy named Vern. Vern was awesome," the cobalt hedgehog grinned at Shadow who nodded.
"He was deaf though…"
"I remember he'd walk around the shop and you'd ask him what he was doing and he'd tell you, "Cleaning out the spider webs.""
Shadow chuckled. "That man was different."
"What happened to him?" Blaze walked around a shelf and sat down next to Amy.
"He just retired," Sonic let Amy make the first move. "I don't know if he's still alive…"
"We never did keep in touch," Shadow mused, looking at the wall where an elk was hung. "Do you still have my antelope?"
"What?" Sonic said, making his move.
"That antelope and badger I shot," Shadow said, looking at the other side of the wall where another elk was hung. "I see you still have my elk."
"Yeah," Sonic answered. "The antelope is in the office," he pointed to a door over by the water fountain. "The badger is in the back office still."
"I need to grab them," Shadow wandered off with Manic and Silver while Sunny joined the girl's and Sonic.
"You shot that?" Manic asked, looking in the small office and at the antelope on the wall. "He's a beauty."
"He wasn't the biggest but…" Shadow shrugged, trailing off and glancing around the office.
There was still an old, metal desk and that creaky green chair there with that old calculator that had paper with it. Two chairs were in front of the desk and a white shelf was in the corner behind the desk and beside the small window. A file cabinet was placed behind the desk as well, only closer.
"Nothin's changed."
"How long has it been since you worked here?"
"Three years," Shadow answered Manic before turning to head back out.
There were two, metal shelves that were slanted and made small aisles. The first shelf on the other side had the scale where Blaze was at. The second shelf held other things and across from it on the wall was a shelf with tiny compartments and had bolts on it.
An old TV sat on a larger one along the wall where the window was, next to one of those old-time pop machines that were square and you just lifted the lid to get the kind of pop you wanted. (I love that machine…I haven't seen it in years…)
Across in a small corner were magazines of tractors and some buckets of something (I have no clue…) that had orange lids on them. The stove was located in the corner of the room so if you were looking from the bird's eye view and the counter shaped 'L' you would see the stove at the top of the 'L' a bit away from it to make a pathway to get to the back.
A swinging door was by the short side of the counter to also lead to the back and where the Men's restroom was though, most of the people just used the restroom next to the old water fountain and large photo copier machine that was new, even though it was marked as a Ladies' restroom.
Manic lifted the lid of the pop machine. "Ooh, it's refilled."
"What kinds are there?" Silver shoved him aside but the two continued to look.
Shadow smirked and patted the small TV. "This is still here?"
"Yeah, Ian's little girl watches Dragon Tales on it all the time," Sonic answered it from the counter.
"Who's Ian?" Shadow inquired, looking at the tall safe next to the two TV's that had a coffee pot on it.
"He doesn't really work here because he's always gone. He just needed a job so we made him our errand boy."
Shadow snorted. "You guys hardly get any customer's—even in summer."
"I know," Sonic sighed, watching as Amy beat him and Sunny switched spots with her to start a new game with the famous hero, "Nothing but Solitaire, man."
That made the ebony hedgehog chuckle at the memories of playing Solitaire on the computers all day long because they barely had any costumers. Besides Vern's grandson always coming in and wandering around at the age of seven. Still, even then, Sonic just watched the kid and Vern's five year old granddaughter while Shadow ignored them.
Sonic seemed one more for kids—Shadow didn't.
The ebony hedgehog frowned. Then again…Shadow probably was the better parent if they had to babysit Petunia or Jeffery for a couple days. He was sure he'd win that bet.
Silver held the Pepsi in the air. "Can I have this?"
"Do you have twenty-five cents?" Sonic asked, watching the two with humor.
Blaze, Sunny and Amy stopped. The rose hedgehog leaned forward. "Pops are only twenty-five cents?"
"For workers, for customers we made 'em a dollar just because we could," Sonic shrugged.
"So, you'll let me have this for twenty-five cents?" Silver held the soda can anyway, making Blaze purr in amusement like usual.
Sonic reached in his pocket and opened a drawer in the counter that seemed to have been makeshift. He put a dollar and fifty cents in. "Get me a Mountain Dew."
Silver nodded and reached for one along with Manic. Blaze looked back. "What kinds are there, seeing as Sonic just paid enough for six of us to have one."
"Shadow doesn't drink pop," Sonic stated. "Well…rarely."
Amy's eyes bugged, "What!?"
Shadow's ears twitched and he walked over to the female. "What's wrong?"
"What's wrong!?" Amy stared at him, swiveling in the stool though it didn't move. "You don't drink pop?"
"It's bad for you."
"Did you know that drinking diet pop is just the same as using meth, only slower?" Sonic grabbed the Mountain Dew and opened it.
He took a swig while staring at his friends who were staring at him in return. Blaze nodded. "Okay…moving on."
"It's true, at least, it affects your teeth," Sonic said. "That's what I've read…"
"There's Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, Pepsi, Pepsi Cherry, Sprite and something that looks like water."
"That's not for sale," Sonic interrupted. "Don't take any of the water."
Blaze giggled. "Dr. Pepper, Silver."
"You got it, ma'am."
He grabbed it and handed it to Manic who turned into his little delivery boy for the moment. Amy told him, "Pepsi Cherry!" while Sunny grabbed the Sprite Manic gave her.
Blaze pointed at her while Silver walked by. "Can't you know my favorite drink?"
Silver leaned his left arm against the table behind her as he drank his Pepsi. He stared at her rather oddly, as if she were the odd one though. He gave her a pouty face and used a tone only a teacher would to a student.
"You're favorite drink is raspberry lemonade, sweetheart, and frankly, that wasn't an option."