Chapter 21: Build
Tails poured himself a coffee and sat down at the small dining table by the back of his house. He was extremely tired, but determined to stay awake until Sonic returned. He expected that the first thing Sonic would do would be to visit him, since he would be hungry and too tired to cook, so he would default to arriving on Tails's doorstep expectant of a hot meal. Tails would serve him a chilli dog and tell him he had made it fresh, just as he always did, then carefully hide the cardboard box the frozen, ready-made chilli dog had come out of just before he had zapped it in the microwave.
When he heard his front door opening, he knew it was Sonic, and so he didn't bother moving.
"Miles, where are you?" Sonic called out.
"I'm out back," Tails called back groggily, before taking another drink of his coffee.
"I need food," Sonic called back.
"Yeah, I'll make you a chilli dog."
"Make me real food."
Tails scrunched up his face and mouthed out "real food" in confusion.
"Miles, why do you have this?"
Tails realised then that it was odd that Sonic was calling him by his regular name, since he very rarely did, and usually only as part of a joke of some kind.
"Did you steal this from the old man?" Sonic asked, his voice gaining a ragged edge of rage. "What do you intend to do with this?"
Tails straightened his back as he heard the faint sound of a zip opening somewhere in another part of his house.
"Miles, what is the meaning of this?" Sonic shouted, his voice suddenly intimidating and raw. "Do you intend to attempt to build me? Why did you take this from the old man?"
Miles slipped out of his chair and walked through to the source of the noise, staring with suddenly wide eyes when he found himself looking at Metal, one arm hanging limply at his side, the other holding a robotic arm.
"Why do you have this?" Metal asked him.
"I, uh, saw them lying around while we were at Eggman's place, and I wanted to study them," Tails replied. "I wanted to figure out how Eggman made the connections between the robotic and the organic parts of your body, I figured I could practise on those."
"This is disgusting," Metal said, shaking the arm at him.
"Well, considering the parts I have there are basically spare parts Eggman kept for you when you were... Yeah, sorry. But hey, buddy, you're talking!"
Metal dropped the arm into the holdall, where it clattered against the other Metal Sonic components Tails had pillaged from Eggman's lair.
"Don't remind me," Metal said coldly.
"But it's amazing!" Tails said, taking a few steps closer to him. "Now you don't need to use sign language to talk to us all! Now you can just talk to all of us! You can talk to Sonic, Amy – and, um, well, maybe don't... Uh..."
Tails scratched a hand at the back of his head.
"Where, uh, where did Sonic go?" he asked instead.
"He's in your bathroom," Metal replied.
And, as though on cue, Tails heard his toilet flushing. Sonic emerged from the bathroom a moment later and moved to stand alongside Metal.
"Check it out, Tails, Metal can talk!" he said.
"Y-yeah, I noticed," Tails awkwardly replied.
"Are you going to feed us, or should we just stand here and suffer?" Metal asked, fixing his eyes onto Tails.
"I have chilli dogs," Tails offered.
"Awesome!" Sonic replied. "Have a chilli dog, Metal!"
"I'd rather eat my own foot," Metal grumpily replied.
"Two chilli dogs, Tails," Sonic said to Tails.
"I just said I didn't want one," Metal sneered.
"Who said anything about you having one?" Sonic responded. "I always need at least two."
"Uh, okay, I'll go make some chilli dogs," Tails said, before moving into the kitchen and quietly opening the freezer.
"Whoa, check it out, Metal!" he heard Sonic say behind him. "There's another you in this bag!"
"Shut up, Sonic," Metal answered.
Tails quickly unpackaged four chilli dogs and stuffed them into the microwave before hurrying back to the room where what appeared to be two Sonics were waiting.
"So, you guys got back here okay," he observed.
"Yeah, I found this guy moping under a tree," Sonic said, pointing a thumb at Metal.
Metal's face went flat, but, when he aimed one hand as though to flick something away and Sonic cried out and clamped his hands over his nose, Metal grinned.
"What are you guys doing?" Tails asked.
"We're being "buddies"," Metal replied in a serpentine tone. "Isn't that right, Sonic?"
"I can't believe Eggman made you this way," Sonic replied, his hands still over his nose. "Like he thinks that is what I'm really like."
The microwave pinged behind Tails and he cleared his throat loudly in the hope that neither of them had heard it.
"I'll be right back!" he said, hurrying back to the kitchen.
He piled the steaming hot chilli dogs onto a plate and rushed back through, but found Sonic was still holding his nose and Metal was still grinning at him in that sinister way, showing far too many teeth and a little too much of his gums.
"Hey, buddy?" he said, holding the plate out towards Sonic and looking at Metal. "I think you still need to put in some work on those facial expressions."
As Sonic picked up a chilli dog and began eating it, Metal turned to Tails, who flinched involuntarily under his glare.
"Why?" he asked.
"Well, that smile your using, it isn't a happy smile," Tails explained as Sonic finished the first chilli dog and sucked his fingers clean.
"What sort of smile is it?" Metal asked.
"It's the sort of smile that makes you look like a mad person," Tails carefully replied. "Like a wild, mad person, who maybe wants to kill somebody."
"Then my work is done."
"...What?"
"This face accurately reflects how I feel."
"O-okay..."
Sonic finished a second chilli dog, before rejoining the conversation.
"Okay Tails, I'm gonna leave Metal to you," he said, picking up a third chilli dog.
"You don't have to," Tails weakly replied.
"And I'm gonna go get Amy," Sonic continued, picking up the last chilli dog. "I need to talk to her, so I might be a while. Just wait here for me, okay?"
Metal's smile vanished and he turned to look at Sonic with a neutral expression.
"Get your hand fixed," Sonic suggested to him. "And your arm. And, I dunno, put that dumb card in the microwave to dry it out."
Sonic bit into the third chilli dog and turned to take his leave. Tails tried to think of a reason to stop him, but struggled to find one, and soon found it was too late to try.
"I lost two of my fingers when I grabbed hold of the old man's flying ball," Metal said, dropping his right hand onto the back of the couch.
"Oh, well I can fix that!" Tails said, brightening. "I can use fingers off the right hand in this bag!"
Tails lifted out the right arm from the bag with a smile, but Metal looked less than amused.
"It's coming in handy already!" Tails tried. "Get it? Handy?"
"I wish you wouldn't say things you think are funny," Metal plainly replied. "It makes you sound like the old man."
"Eggman?" Tails echoed, the arm drooping in his hold. "That's not good. But, wait, why did you grab onto the Eggmobile?"
"The old man was trying to hurt Amy," Metal replied. "I was going to kill him."
"Oh..."
"But then he offered to give me biological hands, so I spared him. I think I will come to regret that."
"...Which part?"
"Sparing him."
Tails nodded slowly.
"So what happened?" he asked. "I mean, after you left us. After Eggman called us and you ran off. What happened to you?"
"I went straight to him," Metal replied. "There is a short walkway on the approach to the room he was in. He locked the doors while I was in it. The air went blurry and I couldn't breathe. The next thing I remember is waking up on the table he used when he was operating on me. He did this."
Metal lifted his chin and pointed in the vague direction of a bald patch that surrounded a gash that had been glued shut.
"Oh, he gave you a voice-box, huh?" Tails asked.
"No, he gave me a biological voice-maker," Metal replied.
Tails frowned for a moment before realising the misunderstanding.
"Voice-box is the actual name for it," he explained.
"Why is a biological body part named after a robotic one?" Metal asked.
"It's probably the other way around, right?" Tails asked with a smile. "Since biological voice-boxes were around before robotic ones, right?"
"Is that meant to be a joke too?"
Tails shook his head.
"Look, buddy, it's great that you can talk now," he said slowly. "But, I'm not sure you should just go ahead and talk to anyone the way you talk to me, you know?"
"What do you mean?" Metal asked.
Tails retrieved two sets of screwdrivers and began opening up the hand of the arm he had taken from Eggman's base.
"Well, some of the things you say are things most people wouldn't talk about," Tails said carefully.
"Such as?" Metal pressed.
"Well, last night, during the gala, at one point, you told me that when you get close to Amy, you, um..."
Tails swallowed with difficulty as he realised that, something he had not even been able to repeat in sign language was something he was never going to be able to vocalise.
"I said I wanted to feel her lips with my lips," Metal finished for him regardless.
"Yeah buddy, you did," Tails said with a sigh. "And that's not something you should really say. To anyone. Ever."
"Why not?" Metal asked.
"Well, if you said that to Amy, she'd probably freak out."
"She taught me it was something I could do."
Tails's hand slipped and he inadvertently snapped the entire back panel off of the hand he was working on instead of just prying it open.
"Okay, I think you probably misunderstood whatever that conversation was," Tails tried. "And please don't tell me whatever that conversation was."
"Amy told me I should use my lips to feel things I like," Metal said.
"And you're just gonna tell me anyway, even though I just asked you not to..."
"I like Amy and I want to feel her with my lips."
"This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about, you can't say things like that to people."
"Last night I mostly just wanted to feel her lips with my lips."
Tails gritted his teeth as he unscrewed the metal bar the fingers were pinned to. He then turned it over and removed the fingers he sought before turning his attention back to Metal.
"And also sometimes she makes me feel funny in a part of my body down there," Metal added as their eyes met.
"I can't help you with that, buddy," Tails stiffly replied. "I can fix your fingers, but I can't help you with that, other than to tell you that you can't say things like that."
"So I should lie?"
"If it means you don't say things like that, then yes, lie. Please just lie."
Tails reached over and carefully lifted the back panel on Metal's hand, noticing then that one of the hinges had bent out of alignment.
"Hang on, I need to get my pliers," he said, turning to go retrieve his toolbox.
"If I can't talk about it," Metal began as Tails opened the lid of his toolbox. "Can I just do it?
Tails hesitated, his hand hovering over a small set of pliers.
"No," he said. "Please don't just... Put your lips on whatever part of Amy you feel like."
Tails shuddered and grabbed up his pliers. He turned and started back towards Metal, finding him looking displeased. He said nothing, and Tails didn't especially wish to hear any more from him in that moment anyway, and so he began carefully straightening the warped piece of metal and then guiding it back into place.
"She did it to me."
Tails closed his eyes and held his hands still. He held his breath until it hurt before sighing and opening his eyes again. He finished repairing the hinge and then began unscrewing the metal bar over Metal's fingers.
"At the gala."
Tails hesitated before sighing again, though this time in relief.
"Are you talking about when Amy kissed you on the cheek?" he asked.
"She put her lips on my face," Metal replied.
"Don't say it like that," Tails said.
"Then what should I say?"
"Say she kissed you!"
"Alright, she kissed me."
"And now you want to kiss her back!"
"Yes."
"Do you understand what that means?"
"Amy said kissing is something people who love each other do."
"Yes, that's right – wait, why was Amy talking to you about kissing?"
"She made me kiss a flower."
Tails felt the blood drain from his face.
"Sh-she did what?" he asked quietly. "I mean, like an actual flower, or...?"
"She told me it was how I can feel things without hands," Metal replied.
"Oh – oh! Oh, I see!" Tails said, a sweat of relief breaking out across his brow. "Oh, well, that's okay, I guess."
"So if I want to know how Amy feels, I can just kiss her?"
"No!"
Metal growled and Tails sighed.
"Speaking to you is even worse than communicating with you using sign language or binary," Metal grumbled.
"You're telling me..." Tails muttered.
Sonic tapped his foot impatiently. It was bad enough that he had managed to enter Amy's house without waking her up, but to find her curled up on her bed, her arms and legs wrapped around a ball of blankets with Rouge lying behind her, her arms and legs wrapped around Amy, and still neither of them stirring, was worse.
"Hey Ames?" he said.
Amy made a small moan and snuggled her face into the blankets.
"Amy?" he tried.
Rouge moaned and opened her eyes, lifting them up to him. She smiled as she met his eyes, lifting an arm from around Amy and reaching it out to him.
"Did you come to join us?" she asked.
"Definitely not," Sonic said, shaking his head.
"You're so boring," she moaned, lowering her arm over Amy again.
"I need to talk to Amy," he continued. "I need you to leave."
Rouge untangled herself from Amy and sat up with a pout.
"Did you at least bring back her little robot friend?" she asked him.
"Yeah," Sonic replied. "Tails is fixing him up right now."
"Fixing him up?" Rouge repeated. "What happened to him?"
"One of his hands it in bits and I think he broke his arm," Sonic replied.
"What?" Amy cried out, sitting up suddenly.
She turned wide eyes with pinpricked pupils to Sonic, her eyes clearly suffering from the sudden transition from sleep to daylight. Sonic turned to Rouge, who stood up from the bed, picking up her boots and starting towards the bedroom door.
"Goodbye, Sonic," she said as she moved through the doorway. "And good luck, Amy."
"Did you say Metal is hurt?" Amy asked, drawing Sonic's attention back to her.
"Uh, yeah, but not too badly," he replied. "Ames, we need to talk."
Amy's face – which had already been full of worry – contorted further, her eyes glazing as tears threatened. Sonic sat down on the edge of her bed and she shuffled over to sit beside him, picking up that threadbare little brown hedgehog doll she usually slept with and squeezing it in her hands.
"Look, Amy, I'm not good with this sort of stuff, but I guess I have to come clean with you," Sonic said. "When we first met, I figured you just had a crush on me because I had a reputation and then I rescued you. But you kinda never stopped, I guess, crushing on me. And... Amy, I do love you, but I'm gonna never love you the way you want me to."
"Oh..." Amy said, looking down at her doll.
"It's not something I really talk about," he continued. "And I guess I thought you'd find someone else and fall in love with them, and I'd never have to talk about it. Shadow said the name for it is asexual."
"Oh."
Amy turned her head to look at Sonic.
"I guess after all this time you've been thinking the way you have about me, you probably think this is weird," he added.
"Are you kidding?" Amy echoed. "No, not at all! I think it's amazing!"
"Really?"
"Yes! I just wish you'd told me sooner! And... Why were you telling Shadow about it if you couldn't even tell me?"
"I didn't want you to be upset that I couldn't... Be what you wanted me to be. And Shadow was the only person I told, until now. And I only told him because I thought he was the same as me. But it turns out he's not. He says he something called demisexual."
Amy nodded.
"That makes sense," she said.
"Anyway, Amy, I love you, but, like the same way I love Tails," he said. "And by the way, don't ever tell Tails that I said I love him, okay?"
Amy giggled.
"Okay, I promise," she said. "But I feel so awful. I was so forward with you, that must have been terrible for you!"
"Uh, I guess sometimes it kinda was," Sonic admitted.
"Oh Sonic, I'm so sorry!" Amy wailed. "I'm so ashamed of myself."
"Look, it's not any worse than what I've been doing lately," Sonic assured her.
"What you've been doing lately...?"
"I thought maybe if I could get you to like Metal, you'd forget about crushing on me, and we could just be friends."
"Sonic, we'll always be friends. And I'll always love you."
"Oh..."
"The way I love you now isn't the same way I loved you before though."
"It's not?"
"No. And I'm not really sure when it changed. But... I don't feel like you're the only one I'm ever gonna love, you know?"
Sonic smiled.
"What?" Amy asked him.
"Did it change when Metal started living with you?" he asked.
Amy bit her lip and looked down at her fluffy toy.
"He's at Tails's place, getting fixed up," Sonic added. "I think you should go over there and see him."
Sonic expected Amy to make an excuse, or say something about waiting, and so he was shocked when she stood up, put down her stuffed hedgehog and started for the door.
"What are you doing?" he asked her.
"Going to see Metal," she called out as she ran through the house away from him.
"You're not gonna get dressed or even put on shoes first?" Sonic called after her.
When he heard the front door opening, he got up and moved to it, finding it wide open, and in the view beyond it, he saw Amy, barefoot and in her pyjamas, running towards Tails's house.
"This X-ray machine isn't really meant to be used on living creatures of any kind," Tails said.
"I'm not an ordinary living creature," Metal pointed out.
"Okay, I guess," Tails said.
He then carefully placed Metal's right arm onto a table.
"Don't move," he said, before running from the room.
Once he was outside the room, he pressed the button on the remote in his hand, and then hurried back in. He called the image up onto his monitor, running his eyes over it.
"Okay, it looks like your shoulder is dislocated, but you still have some use of it since your shoulder is enhanced with a metal compound," he concluded.
"Can you fix it?" Metal asked him.
"The best I could do is snap your shoulder back into place," Tails said with a shrug. "But I could trap a nerve or damage your augmentations, so I'd rather not try it."
"Just do it," Metal insisted.
"Even if I get it right, it will hurt real bad," Tails warned him.
"Miles, just do it."
Tails sighed.
"Okay buddy, but don't say I didn't warn you."
Tails moved over to where Metal was sitting and picked up his arm, holding it just above his wrist.
"Okay, brace yourself," he warned as he placed a hand on Metal's shoulder.
"Hurry up," Metal impatiently snapped.
Tails lifted his arm, wincing as he heard a snapping sound. Metal let out a low, feral growl, and, when Tails opened his eyes again, he saw that Metal's eyes were glowing unbearably bright.
"I did warn you," he said meekly.
"Just get me some food," Metal ground out.
Tails nodded and hurried off towards the kitchen. He began piecing together a sandwich, but stopped when he heard his front door being thrown open with a bang. He walked back through to the living room, where Metal had moved to. Beyond him, Sonic walked into the house, holding up his hands.
"I tried to tell her to get dressed first, but she wouldn't listen," he said.
Amy stepped around Sonic, her eyes growing wide as she spotted Metal.
"Metal!" she cried, before running towards him.
Her feet were bare, she was wearing a set of slightly too big, powder blue pyjamas with little white clouds on them, and her quills had that ruffled look about them they got when she had just woken up. But she apparently didn't care as she threw her arms around Metal and squeezed him into a hug. Tails expected Metal to do what he usually did, and just stand there, and so, when he put his arms around her and buried his face into her messy quills, Tails couldn't keep the surprise from his face. He looked over at Sonic, who gave him a thumbs-up and a smile. Amy moved back from Metal, taking hold of his hands in hers and smiling up at him with tears in her eyes.
"Metal, I was so worried about you!" she gushed. "And I'm so sorry I yelled at you! I didn't realise you were helping Sonic. You did an amazing thing and I never even said thank you. You went and handed yourself over to Eggman for Cream's sake, you helped us fight off Eggman and his robots and you saved Sonic's life!"
She looked at him expectantly for a long moment and Tails started to grow suspicious, especially when Sonic's face started to twist. Tails slowly moved over to stand alongside Sonic, so that he was looking at Metal's face rather than Amy's.
"Are you okay?" Amy asked him.
He opened his mouth and his chest rose as though he was drawing in a breath to speak: but then his face faltered, he appeared to blush slightly and he quickly closed his mouth again. He gave a single nod of his head and Amy sighed.
"I'm so glad you're okay," she said. "And I'm so glad you're back. Come home with me."
He gulped audibly, before giving another, singular nod of his head.
"Are you kidding me?" Tails blurted out.
Amy turned to him with a frown.
"I thought I was gonna be the one to crack," Sonic muttered to him.
"Are you okay, Tails?" Amy asked him.
She was still holding Metal's hands, and, with her head turned away, Tails noticed that Metal was looking down at their joined hands.
"I'm fine," he lied. "But I'm going to bed."
"Fantastic idea," Sonic agreed. "Catch you all later."
Sonic left the house and Amy turned fully around, releasing one of Metal's hands, but keeping hold of the other, she led him towards the front door. Tails smiled at her as she passed, then quickly signed out "what are you doing" to Metal. Metal gave a single shake of his head and disappeared through the door with Amy. Tails sighed and kicked the door closed behind them.
"He's even worse than me," he grumbled, before trudging off towards his bedroom.
Next Chapter: Amy and Metal go home and go to sleep, and when Amy wakes the next morning, she reflects on everything he did and how far he has come. Amy goes to start her garden project and is pleasantly surprised to find her promised helpers are ready waiting for her, along with some unexpected volunteers. Tails finds Metal doing something he suspects is just another sign of his feelings for Amy. Amy is pleased to see that her friends are finally all accepting Metal into their group, and even enjoying his company when he tells them the story of how he learned how to dance. Chapter 22: Garden