Given the choice, the two hedgehogs would have liked to avoid Tails and each other for a while- or perhaps forever- but the very next day was the day Charlie and Belinda decided to go on a rampage. Somehow Knuckles had got it into his head that it'd make him more attractive to the 'ladies' if he joined the library amateur poetry club, where he ran into Belinda, who proceeded to get into a confrontation with him that required her and her husband to man their Ancients war suits and start laying waste to Hedgehog Village.
"She said I plagiarised her," Knuckles began explaining, after he and his friends had dealt with the villainous couple. "But she's got it all wrong. I'd never play with eyes. I'd never even play with ears," the huge echidna then flicked Tails' ear experimentally, laughed delightedly at the resulting ear twitch and flicked it again.
"Cut it out, Knuckles," the fox's irritation was half-hearted, the victory putting the team in good spirits.
Well, three members of the team. The other two, not so much.
"Hey Sonic, what's up?" Tails asked his blue companion. "You seem a little off your game today."
"No, everything's fine," Sonic said gruffly, not looking at anyone. Amy felt for him as she stood to one side, trying to be unnoticeable. It was uncomfortable to the point of painful trying to talk with their friends after what had happened. Especially to Tails- how could he be so normal after last night? How many times had he spent a night of passion and then casually hung out with them the next day as though-
"Somethings weird about you too, Amy," Sticks the badger fired out of nowhere.
"Huh? What? No! Nothing's weird!" Amy turned to Sticks with a jerk and plastered a fake smile on her face. "W-well what would be weird? I'm fine, just standing here, with my hammer," the girl hefted her huge mallet encouragingly, holding the haft in a crushing grip.
"Yeah, definitely something weird. If she's been replaced with a robot you should be able to smell the motor oil," Sticks leant forward to sniff. The memory of Tails complimenting Zooey on her scent made Amy practically leap away from the badger.
"No! Don't smell me! There's nothing to sm- I mean, don't be silly, Sticks- I'm not a robot, and even if I was, I'd be sealed so you wouldn't be able to smell anything on me, so no need to smell me, 'kay?" Amy smiled reassuringly, certain one of her eyes was twitching.
"Er, right," Sticks stepped away carefully. She along with Tails and Knuckles looked at Amy in confusion, causing the girl to grit her teeth in annoyance. I mean for crying out loud, how could she be standing next to Sticks and yet look like the crazy one?
"Well, speaking of a smell," Tails calmly turned away "you might wanna go take a shower Sonic- I can smell that stuff all over you."
"WHAT?!" the scandalised Sonic fell back with a look of horror on his face. "That's a lie! You're not smelling anything from me! I haven't done… anything! And I'm not going in your shower- not in a million years!"
Tails just looked at Sonic in utter bewilderment. So did Sticks and Knuckles. Only Amy shared Sonic's blanched appearance. What the hell was Tails smelling from Sonic? More importantly, why was he smelling him?!
'I should have seen it coming! Tails is a sex maniac! I've gotta knock him out! I've gotta find a straightjacket!'
"Er, I think," Knuckles suggested slowly "Tails was talking about Belinda's exhaust pipe smoke screen that you ran straight into, Sonic. I mean, seriously, didn't you notice- I could smell you from the other side of the island right now."
"And I wasn't asking you to use my shower," Tails added cautiously. "That would be…really, really weird."
Sonic's outrage vanished instantly, leaving him frozen mid recoil. Amy found herself equally dumbstruck as she came to terms with the obvious- and unperverted- reasoning for Tails' observation, though at least she could keep her embarrassment to herself. Sonic on the other hand-
"Yeah I know all that I just mean I'm on top of it I'll get cleaned up and of course you're not talking about your shower I mean why would you when I've my own and it's not like I'd be thinking about your shower I'm not interested in it at all ha ha!" Sonic babbled out, ending his rambling with a huge forced grin, before quickly adding "Well, guess we're done here. See you later!" and with that he vanished in a blur of blue, leaving a baffled trio and one cringing hedgehog in his wake.
"What was that all about?" Knuckles asked.
"So alien mind probe," Sticks said certainly.
"I don't think so," Tails scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Something's got Sonic wound up tight. And it's happened at the same time…" he stabbed out a finger dramatically to point "… that Amy started acting strange."
"Wha-?" Amy blurted, horrified to find curious eyes on her. Tails took a step closer, and the girl had to resist the urge to jump away or lash out with her hammer.
"Amy," Tails asked gently, making her more uncomfortable. "Is something going on with you and Sonic."
"I…" Amy blanched. A tremble went down her spine and into her arms.
"Did you two have some sort of argument?" the fox asked.
"W-well…," Amy struggled to find an answer, the guilt and embarrassment of last night like a balloon expanding in her stomach. She knew she couldn't let Tails even suspect that she'd spied on him while he was with Zooey, but a lie just wouldn't come to her.
"In a… way… we," the girl stuttered. She was going to barf any second.
"Did you two have a," Tails' eyes glinted mischievously "lovers tiff?"
"What?!"
"Seriously?!" Sticks and Knuckles rounded on Amy.
The pink hedgehog's mouth hung open in shock as her three friends looked at her with amusement and glee, her silence only making their grins all the wider.
"You mean you two are finally going to stop dancing around each other?" Knuckles said in disbelief.
"And about time too," added Sticks.
"What do you- wait… you're wrong," Amy stammered, unable to believe the course the conversation was taking."
"Hey, come on Amy. You can talk to us about this," Tails said reassuringly. "There's something going on between you and Sonic, right?"
"No, it's-"
'It's that me and Sonic overheard you getting it on with your girlfriend last night and now we don't where to look,' the thought made Amy's voice falter. With her insides squirming, the girl looked to her feet, and after a pause whispered "Kinda…"
Amy had to force herself not to roll her eyes in exasperation at the whoops of her friends.
"Yeah, great work Amy!" Tails beamed.
"About two years late, but better late then never," Sticks added, while Knuckles nodded in agreement. Amy forced a weak smile at the congratulations.
"Well, don't worry about Sonic, Amy. The early days of a relationship are always a little rocky. I should know," Tails boasted.
"Poetry. That's the language of love," Knuckles said confidently. "I'll just teach you a few lines of my work, Amy, and Sonic won't be able to resist you. How about we start right after lunch?"
"Er, wow. Thanks, Knuckles," Amy groaned regretfully. "That's really nice, but-"
"Come off it Knuckles," Tails interrupted. "If anyone's going to give Amy dating advice, it's me. I gotta lot of tips from all the time I've spent with Zooey-"
"No!" Poetry sounds great- I love poetry!" Amy said quickly, scooting over to the echidna's side.
Once again, Amy found her friends looking at her in bafflement, even Knuckles himself, until a wide grin broke across his face and he shouted "Well, alright! Finally, people realise I'm the one with the smarts!"
Amy wished the ground would just swallow her up right now.
"Hm, fine," Tails sulked. "You can give your poetry lesson, but just wait till lunch- then Amy can get a real lesson when she sees how me and Zooey get on."
"What?" Amy blurted.
"Yeah. Er…" Tails suddenly looked bashful. "You guys don't mind if Zooey joins us for lunch, do you?"
They all recognised the significance of Tails asking Zooey to join their group for lunch. Things between them must be pretty serious. So of course, Sticks and Knuckles responded with "Sure!" and "Yeah!"
Amy didn't answer at all. She'd changed her mind- she was going to dig her own hole to be swallowed up in.
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"Not a chance in hell!"
The reaction was understandable, Amy supposed. She had just relayed the conversation she'd had to Sonic, who was now pacing around his shack, pulling at his blue bristles in frustration.
"I'm not having lunch with Tails and Zooey. If I so much as see them together I'll puke."
"What else can we do?" Amy said forlornly. "If Zooey's going to start hanging out with us, we can't just avoid our friends forever."
Sonic prowled over to the shelf holding his coconut husk collection, taking the prize exhibit down and rolling the hollowed shell in his hands like a stress ball.
"How are we supposed to just carry on as though nothing's wrong?" Sonic huffed. "Can you imagine what's its going to be like hanging around with those two like we don't know exactly what get up to when they're alone? And you can bet they'll be all over each other even in public, which will gross everyone out. And if she calls him Miles again…"
The blue hedgehog shuddered. He fell silent as he closed his eyes, perhaps trying to calm himself by going to his happy place.
"Not to mention," Amy pointed out "that they all think we're dating now."
Sonic's hands crushed his prized coconut husk, making Amy jump.
Sonic threw the ruined shell aside and rounded on Amy.
"This is all your fault!" he barked.
"What?"
"You heard me. Everything's that's happening now is all because of you!"
"Hey, back off already!"
"If you hadn't have dragged me off to spy on Tails this wouldn't be happening!"
"At least I'm handling it in a mature manner."
"What, by telling everyone we're dating?"
"If you hadn't panicked and gone running off I wouldn't have needed to come up with an excuse for your behaviour!"
"Oh right, so now it's my fault you're been stalking Tails and Zooey for a month?"
"Well it's not my fault you're freaking out in front of everyone!"
The pair broke off their argument by some mutual consensus, turning away from each other. Amy hugged herself bitterly while Sonic just fumed. Letting out their frustrations had done nothing to ease the tension, and they still had no solution to their dilemma. The was a long silence before either of them said anything.
"I'm sorry."
Sonic looked over to Amy. His face had a look of surprise, but Amy forced herself not to be annoyed by it.
"I'm sorry," she repeated. "You're right. I shouldn't have been spying on Tails and Zooey," she sighed sadly. "And I shouldn't have told everyone we were dating. I… panicked."
Amy dropped her eyes shamefully. She couldn't even remember the last time she admitted she was wrong, if ever, but this was one occasion where she couldn't deny it.
Admitting it didn't hurt as much as she thought it would.
The girl looked up when Sonic approached, and she was pleased to see he wasn't smug or gloating. If anything, he looked down right contrite, as though he was the one accepting blame.
After a moment the blue hedgehog said "It doesn't matter whose fault it is. It's happened- we gotta deal with it."
He gestured to the lumpy assembly that was supposedly a sofa. With some hesitation, Amy took a seat. Sonic sat down next to her.
A new silence took over the conversation, as both hedgehogs wondered what to say. Amy still felt tense, though not as much as before. Maybe there really was something in admitting your fault- not that she was going to make a habit of it.
"I guess, when you think about it," said Sonic "what happened to us last night wasn't too weird."
Amy looked at Sonic with mouth open and brow furrowed in a distinct 'Seriously?!' look. Sonic grinned sheepishly.
"Okay, it's really weird," he agreed. "What I mean is…" he paused, and his smile faded as he seemed to suddenly doubt what he was saying. He looked to his feet with a troubled expression. Amy was taken aback to see Sonic looking so unexpectedly unsure.
"Sonic?" she prompted gently.
"I think the thing that's bothering is not what happened, it's that-" Sonic's rush of words paused again, but he pushed on "- it's that it was Tails who it was happening to."
The hedgehog looked at Amy as though he'd just confessed something shameful. The girl thought back to last night, when implying how Sonic was afraid he was losing a friend to another relationship. She had to admit she was one for looking for splinters in the eyes of others while ignoring the proverbial log in her own, but perhaps on this occasion there had been some depth of truth to her words.
"Tails has always been my kid brother… except, he's not a kid anymore," Sonic said forlornly. "He's grown up, and things aren't gonna be the same anymore."
Amy smiled sympathetically, laying her hand on Sonic's while she prepared her words.
"Yes, it's true. People grow up, and things change with them," she said softly. "But Tails is still Tails. He's still your friend Sonic, and your friendship doesn't have to change. But if you want to stay friends, you will need to change to welcome Zooey as part of Tails' life."
Sonic looked at her, doubt and hope in his eyes.
"So what do I do?"
Amy took a moment to think before answering. This was hardly the first time she'd found herself dispensing advise to people on how to manage their problems and better themselves, but it was the first time she hadn't forced it on someone- the first time someone had actually invited her to give her opinion. She felt a sense of fulfilment blossom within. Suggestions and ideas rushed to the forefront of her mind, but she reigned them in, not wanting to blow this rare opportunity to really help someone.
"Zooey is important to Tails. That means she- or at least her relationship with Tails- has to become important to you," Amy explained in a soothing tone. "Let them know you're happy for them. And more importantly, feel happy for them. Give their relationship room to grow. Don't put pressure on them to make time for you. Let them decide how they want things to move forward. Tails has to decide how to make sure you're still as much a part of his life as Zooey. Just wait and let him know you're still there, and if Tails is a true friend to you, he'll meet you part way."
Sonic stared ahead blankly as he rolled the advice around his head. Then he gave a small smile.
"That… sounds like a good idea," he looked at Amy playfully. "Wow, that's the second weird experience to happen lately- your psychobabble actually came in handy for a change."
The pink hedgehog frowned, but could hold back a smile as she shoved her companion.
"Well, guess we're going to have to get used to Tails and Zooey being a thing," Sonic's tone was far more optimistic than before. "Who'd have thought my nerdy little bro would be the first one out of all of us to get a serious relationship."
"I guess the rest of us have been stuck in a rut for a long time," Amy ventured. "We've gotten so comfortable with the way things are we haven't thought about building new relationships."
"Seriously?" Sonic looked at her incredulously. "You, the author of 'A Rose Without Thorns' hasn't thought about romance? Hasn't thought about putting on a white dress and being carried out of the church by Mister Right?"
"Sonic!" Amy slapped his shoulder, blushing madly. "Of course I've thought about dating, but I haven't thought that far ahead," she calmed a little, but could still feel the heat in her cheeks. "And anyway, what about you? You're always bragging about your way with women, but I've never actually known you to go out on a date."
"Hey, I've gone out to… lunch with people," Sonic had started to draw himself up confidently, but seemed to think better of it.
"But, there just never seems to be much opportunity for getting to know new people. Comes with living life in the fast lane, I guess."
"So, you need someone who'll go slowly for you?"
Sonic responded to Amy's joke with a glare of mock annoyance.
"Very funny," he replied. "Anyway, what do you mean you've thought about dating? You have someone in mind?"
Amy's blush returned with a vengeance.
"N-no I don't!" she stuttered. "I just mean I've considered what a relationship would be like. I'm still waiting for a," she shot him a look "Mister Right, as you call him."
Sonic grinned for a moment, then looked at Amy thoughtfully.
"Oh yeah? Annnnd… what exactly is this Mister Right like?"
Amy opened her mouth, then stopped. This suddenly felt like quite a serious question, not one to be answer with a quick quip.
"Well," she thought out loud. "I guess someone with the same interests as me. Well, maybe not Fuzzy Puppy Buddies™, but someone interested in arts, and literature."
Amy looked to Sonic as spoke. He had an intent look on his face. She wasn't sure what to think of it, but she couldn't bring herself to look away.
"They would have to be someone… cultured, and well read," she continued, but as her gaze caught Sonic's, it seemed to shift his attention till Amy felt the blue hedgehog was focussing not on the words but on Amy herself. It was a strange feeling.
"And they'd have to have good etiquette," her voice started to tail off. She felt as though she were short of breath.
"And be… romantic," Amy stared into Sonic's face. His expression was blank, but his eyes held an intensity that told her he felt this strange charge lancing between them as well. Had he leaned closer to her? She wasn't sure, but she had a feeling that she should be leaning closer to him.
So she did.
What happened next struck both hedgehogs with little more than mild surprise.
The kiss was gentle and slow. Physically, there wasn't much to say- the touch of skin was soft and little damp, and no warmer than a handshake. But inside Amy, a reaction flooded from her lips and reached into every part of her body.
No movie or novel had ever prepared Amy for how this felt. She thought she was ready for the heat of romance- the passion and the fire and the sheer overwhelming power of young love.
This was nothing like that.
This was gentle bliss.
All the anticipation that had led to this moment evaporated. All that was left was the contentment of their companionship. Amy couldn't imagine that any aspect of love could surpass this simple moment of happiness.
She remembered hearing Tails and Zooey last night, and her heart skipped a beat.
Well, there'd be time to investigate just what she and Sonic could share with each other.
"You realise," Sonic remarked as they broke the kiss "that I'm none of those things you just said."
"There's still time to fix you," Amy said playfully. Sonic laughed, and it was impossible not to join in.
"So, does this mean we're dating now?" Amy asked in a would-be calm tone that was followed by a giggle of unrestrainable joy.
"Well we better be, since all our friends already think we are," Sonic answered, before reaching out to take Amy's hand. "But seriously, I'd like to. I… I like you Amy. A lot."
Coming from Sonic, this admission might as well have been a nationwide declaration of love, and it made Amy beam.
"And I like you too," she confessed. "But let's take things slow at first. We're new at this. And besides, we don't want to take the thunder away from Tails and Zooey right now."
"Hmm, okay," Sonic shrugged. "Though going slow isn't really my thing."
Amy sighed, and slapped the back of his head lightly.
"You dork."
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The sight of Sonic and Amy arriving at Meh Burger together elicited a small cheer from their friends.
"So, here's the latest couple on the block," catcalled Knuckles.
"Just keep the mushy stuff turned down while we're here. One clingy couple's enough," Sticks jested.
"Congratulations you guys," Zooey, the new member of their group, stood to welcome the hedgehogs. "I always hoped you two'd get together."
There was the slightest pause as the new arrivals took in Zooey presence, awash with memories of last night's embarrassment and this morning talk of insecurity.
Both were relieved to find their emotions stayed completely in balance.
"Well, glad we could fulfil your expectations," Sonic answered Zooey with good humour while Amy gave her a friendly hug. "Are many other people interested in our love life?"
"Only the whole town," laughed Tails. "Good to see you've made up since earlier. But if it happens again, Sonic, just come to me. I can give you some good dating tips."
"Yeah, thanks little guy," Sonic drawled in response to Tail's cocky tone "but I think I got this covered."
Sonic and Amy briefly clasped hands under the table.
"Whatever you say, Sonic," said Tails. "Anyway, you two put in your order. I'm paying."
Amy reached for the supermeal menu and said "Great! Thanks Miles!"
It was like the world had been put on pause. Everyone stared at Amy in stunned silence, while the girl remained frozen with arm outstretched, a look of horror on her face. No one move.
Until Zooey's eyes widened.
Sonic clapped a hand to his forehead.
"Ah, nuts."