Wake up.

"No way."

"Take it."

"You're hungry, too!"

"I'm fine. Here, take it."

"But–"

"Don't argue. Save your strength."

Tangle's about to say more, anyway, eyes alight with emotion yet dark in colour, when her stomach speaks for her, garnering a downcast glare at the betrayal, mood darkening, too, a sinister and unusual thing.

"Please."

Another cry of a body malnourished.

Whisper inclines her head at the end of the rumble, eyebrows scrunched together at the rise of the whine.

"Shoot."

"You're hungrier than I am."

"I'm just being greedy! It's nothing. I can handle it."

"Nonsense. You use more energy, more quickly. You need to eat more."

"I'm fine."

"Tangle."

"Stupid, selfish stomach."

"Tangle, stop that, right now."

"Whisper! You know how I feel about this!"

"Yes, but still, you're hungry and I can help and you know how I feel about this, too. I want to help. Let me."

"We're all hungry."

"I can't help everyone."

"Don't worry about me."

"Can't help that, either." The wolf draws closer, leaning in to rest her forehead against the lemur's. "You're important."

"And they aren't? You're important, too!"

"I'm making a choice. S'mine to make."

"Look, just listen to me, okay? I'm not gonna sit here and scoff your share." Another bodily complaint prompts Tangle to shake her head stubbornly, trying not to show discomfort, grinding the dusty fluff of her head against Whisper's fraying fringe. "I won't do it, I won't eat your share and watch you get hungrier without it."

"Stop being difficult."

"Because you're important, too."

"I'll shove it down your throat."

"You deserve it, you deserve to eat, just as much as anybody."

"I want you to have it." The wolf says this so easily, so simply, like it's not costing her a thing to give.

"Are we really arguing over bread?"

"Yes."

"Shoot."

"Eat it."

"Sorry, pal." The lemur nuzzles at the larger woman's snout, breathing against lips, "I won't."

"Must I use force?"

"I know you wouldn't do that."

"Then I'll share it, again."

"Darling, c'mon."

"Keep a little for myself. A compromise, see?"

"Don't–"

Whisper promptly tears the dry bread unevenly in two, passing the larger part with their foreheads still pressed, noses grazing, shoving it gently against Tangle's chest.

"You…"

"Please, Tangle."

"You're using that tone."

"For me."

The lemur groans from the belly outward, then weakly, reluctantly, presents a hand between them, fingers uncurling, palm upward, wincing as her hand helplessly fills with bread

The wolf makes a reassuring sound though her nose, with a blast of warm air, like she's huffing her primordial message to a member of her pack.

"You needed that."

"No, I'm used to less." Whisper sits back, again, leaving Tangle to slump forward on her own, but not alone. "I'm built to survive."

"I know."

"Eat."

The lemur has no fight left for this. "Okay."

The wolf tries to encourage by taking a dainty bite out of what's left, chewing, swallowing, savagery in check.

"Thank you," Tangle murmurs with thickened words whilst salivating her gratitude and shame, amethyst eyes fluttering shut guiltily, closed off against temptation whilst nostrils flare at the scent of it, ears folding in disappointment, lips then drawing into a fine line, as if she ought to have stitched herself shut.

"Don't feel bad about it."

"Mmhm."

"You're my best friend, Tangle." Patience and tenderness paint a face so softly, like a sunset. "Without you, what's the use in bread, or water, or anything?"

Amethysts peel themselves open, wide, beholding the fading, lapsing brilliance with what almost looks the the fear of a religious experience.

"You're important."

And a choked start or end of a giggle, destined to never fully manifest either way, is wrenched from a tight chest too soon. It can be forgiven or being mistaken for a sob, even as that sudden smile remains honest and delirious and happy, bread forgotten about as one woman drags herself ahead in a crawl straight into the other's heat.

"Tangle?"

"Man! You're way too cute for your own good, pal."

Blue eyes emerge, too, in shards of concern, unbothered by the physical proximity. "Tangle, what–?"

A kiss to the cheek brings about silence.

Then, the wolf's world is set spinning, wonderfully, and she finds stability on the lemur's shoulder.

"Oh, Whisper. Whisper, darling, I… Whisper…"

"Hmmm." It's ecstasy, this vertigo, this anchor in another's presence.

As if in orgasm, Tangle ripples.

So does Whisper.

It's very strange.

"You're gonna tear reality into bits, someday."

"I am?"

"Yeah! With all your… kindness and… cuteness… and… God, I wanna kiss you all over."

"Don't cry, Tangle."

"I'm crying, Whisper? Dude! I didn't even notice, but of course, you did."

"'Course." A clawed thumb carefully wipes the evidence away in little strokes, their faces kept close. "I'm sorry."

"You're awesome. Don't apologise, not for anything."

"I'm not perfect."

"Me, neither. Doesn't stop you from filling me up."

"Making me whole."

"I do that?"

"When I get up in the morning, the first thing I do, is find you. Then, my day can begin."

Wake up. Reach for her, she isn't there.

The Wisps mourn in their own way, too, and their way is to provide the children with companionship, which was something Tangle liked to do when she wasn't too busy taking care of other adults. The orphans, especially, appreciate having something warm and soft to hold that isn't reserved to memory and inanimate objects.

Whisper herself isn't a mother and she isn't the mothering kind, beyond her affection for these sentient weapons, these organic tools, and as she moves on heavy boots with remarkable noise for such stealthy steps, the Wisps come back to her one after another and she greets them softly each time, gathering her little group into her arms and upon her shoulders and along the length of her back.

Their tiny embraces are like sunbeams kissing metal, igniting it in a beautiful sheen contrary to its dull ugliness, otherwise, giving warmth to something unyielding and cold, able to bend out of shape or dent after enough blows, forming shapes somewhat useless, eventually. Their heat doesn't melt it into an appropriate or at least better mould, won't reinforce whatever remains upon cooling down, cannot mend.

Amy wouldn't meet the wolf's gaze. The hedgehog normally adores meeting gazes, pondering the secrets within, a vigilant study of people, even when trying to empathise. A constant process of intimately acquainting and reacquainting herself with others. It's why she's normally so good at grasping the social intricacies, so good at being kind and reassuring, yet forceful and direct as her old temper remembers itself. But after a few hours of silent, mutual work, she sent Whisper away with unnecessary, brief thanks.

Another apology, then an apology for apologising too often, then silence.

The hedgehog didn't even glance up to see the wolf depart with her bushy, increasingly unkempt tail tucked away.

Whisper walks with her Wisps and she realises that she probably took Amy's innocence away. Counts it as a disloyalty to Tangle's memory, another notch on the heart's wall that the wolf has no intention of ever letting go, being accustomed to holding herself accountable, accounting for everything.

The hedgehog is ruined.

If the lemur were here, she'd make it all seem forgivable, somehow. But if Tangle were here, this would never have happened.

Whisper stops when, quite amusingly, she encounters a very literal wall.

Obscenities, poetry, names of paramours or missing people, bad omens, have all been scrawled upon it. Likely the work of a few angry, misplaced teens missing home, misdirecting their anger at Sonic and others in his crew who have notable names or obvious enough descriptors to be easily recognised in chalk and pen. Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, perhaps, there isn't much mention of the true menace, Eggman.

Her long, strong fingers trace a place where blame lies in a crude caricature. "Me, too."

Wake up. Struggle to breathe, then win, but lose.

"Amy."

"Hi, Whisper."

"Wasn't expecting…"

"I've checked on everyone else."

It's been some days and the days all blur together, anyway, giving some illegitimacy to the freshness of wounds.

"No, s'just…" The wolf gestures vaguely at the hedgehog. "Didn't think…"

"We're fine, sweetie, aren't we?"

Whisper's eyes open very slightly, then squeeze shut, again. "Yes."

"Good." Amy braces her hands on her knees and pushes herself to stand.

"Going?"

"That's it."

"Oh."

"Unless you wanna talk or sit together in silence, touching or not. I'm flexible." The hedgehog is already moving past, toward the exit, the entrance, the division between outer space and this inner space that could be afforded, now, because, as an insensitive older civilian had put it before almost getting his skull cracked, the loss of bodies makes for more room and many people are gone.

"Amy," the wolf says, still in an undertone, "you're a good person."

"Heh, I keep telling myself that same thing when the tough choices are made."

"You make them because you're the only one tough enough, the one who can."

"Big sister."

"Yes."

"Thanks, Whisper." Green eyes swivel, tracing an erect ear alongside in a contemplative, upward gaze afforded in this hesitation before departure, tail tucked. "You, too."

"Have you seen it?"

Amy is stalled again. "Seen what?"

"Never mind." Whisper is without her Wisps, again, but she told them she's not so important that they should stay. "S'better that way." She moves to sit on the hard edge of the makeshift bed, stooped, slowly, in stiff, unwilling inches.

"Before…" The hedgehog remains, slender body battle ready, empty hands accustomed to a heavy hilt, shoulders bowed under a heavy burden. "I lied."

The wolf risks sounding stupid as she grunts a question.

"I came here because I'm lost."

"Inside?"

"My thoughts are broken and it feels fucked up, being by myself, right now. I want someone and the someone I want, I can't have. He has to run and I'm terrified of the day he won't be able to run, anymore." Amy sighs into her falling quills, head dipped. "I lied, like I was about to go. And I will, but I'm hoping you'll give me an excuse not to."

"After all I've taken from you–"

"You didn't mean it."

"I'd rather be alone," Whisper finishes as the hedgehog steps closer, then sits down, close beside.

"We're going extinct and we can't be so petty."

The wolf nods.

"Is that your only compromise?"

"Dunno how to be with people, without her."

"Tangle wanted you to make friends. To open up to us, so we could be here, for you."

"She saved me."

"She isn't dead, sweetheart."

"Yes. She's hurting, instead."

"We'll find a cure," Amy says, taking Whisper's larger hand in hers. "Have hope."

"S'hard."

"I know, sweetie. God. I know."

Wake up. "Fuck."

The ceiling.

"Fuck!"

The ceiling is like the face of some sort of abstract monster.

Why am I awake?

An abstract monster that sucks souls from people as they wake from pleasant memories that may only be dreams, masquerading, made to look like memories, invented in their place for sanity's sake and to keep things sacred.

Tangle is out there, shambling.

And the monster that is the ceiling is here and her image is, too, witnessing how stupid Whisper seems, sprawled out on her back, again, wet from sweat and something else, a forest drenched in dew.

The lemur taught the wolf to love herself, but those lessons are over, now.

"I'm awake."

Amy isn't here to teach, either. And when she's around, she's no substitute.

"I'm alive."

The hedgehog hasn't been here for a few days since. Her love doesn't make a difference, it isn't fit for purpose, it's not enough.

"S'fine."

She's leaving, too. Withdrawing. It's basically the same thing but it implies fault on the part of the one that pushed her away, or didn't, after she pulled, too hard.

Whisper sits up, slowly.