A couple of weeks had passed since Sonic and Tails had become an item. Sonic's broken ankle was now on the mend, thanks to a doctor that Tails had found. However, he was still not allowed to go running (under orders from that very same doctor), and he still walked with a hint of a limp. As you'd expect, he was apocalyptically bored. Tails kept him company, though, so he couldn't complain too much.

Although, there was a shared worry connecting their two minds today: they still hadn't told their friends. Apart from Amy, of course. In retrospect, Tails was glad that she was the one who found out first, even if it wasn't under the best circumstances. If it hadn't been an emergency situation, the young kitsune would have been most nervous about telling her. After all, she wasn't exactly subtle when it came to showing her affection for the blue blur.

Ok, nervous would have been an understatement. He'd have been absolutely terrified.

But, as it was, she'd been surprisingly supportive. Tails knew she was a bit hurt by the developments, but she wore her mask well, too proud to let her friends down. Before he had flown off to find that doctor those weeks before, she had pulled him to the side, for a hug and a message:

"You're lucky to have him, Tails. Hold on to him." Of course, this also came with a warning:

"However, if you do anything to hurt him, or break his heart, Miles, I'll be happy to reintroduce you to my hammer."

He had been on his best behaviour since. Amy had been a frequent visitor, simultaneously checking in on Sonic and keeping an eye on Tails. The new couple had been staying at Sonic's, which thankfully wasn't too out of the ordinary for them (they'd had more than their fair share of sleepovers over the years), except for when Tails headed back to his workshop to continue work on his not-so-secret project, that was so obviously a replacement for the Tornado it was painful. But, even with that going on, most of the fox's time was spent beside Sonic, keeping him entertained with movies, games and their standard banter. That's how they found themselves today, just snuggled up together on Sonic's sofa, watching the latest film that Studiopolis had to offer, when there was a gentle knock on the door.

Of course, Sonic immediately made the move to get up to answer it, as he'd done thousands of times before, before he was just as quickly pushed back down by Tails planting a small kiss on his forehead.

The fox opened the door a few seconds later to find two rabbits standing there, one considerably older and taller than the other.

"Oh. Hello, Miles."

"Hi, Vanilla." She was one of the only people other than Sonic and Amy who was allowed to call him Miles. Before he got distracted, he made sure to greet the other rabbit too.

"Hey, Cream."

"Heya, Tails! Is Mr Sonic home?"

"He can't exactly get far!" Tails chuckled.

"Hey! I heard that!" Sonic shouted from inside, which only made Tails laugh harder, and Cream couldn't help but join in.

"Come on through. I'm sure he'll be happy to see you." With that, Tails held the door open for the guests, who didn't hesitate to accept the invitation.

Cream had, of course, been told that Sonic had been hurt, so being the sweet young girl that she was, she had wanted to surprise him with a bouquet of self-picked flowers, as well as one of her signature flower crowns, and Vanilla had busied herself in the kitchen making some tea for herself (and some nice hot chocolate for the others). Once she had returned to the living room, they just sat around and chatted. Vanilla was basically the informal mother-figure of their little friend circle, for obvious reasons, so it was always easy to lose yourself in a nice and friendly conversation with her. The conversation touched upon all subjects, from planes, to flowers, to Vector, to future plans.

But, eventually, it made it's way to the topic that the new couple had been trying to avoid. Neither of them knew why they had wanted to keep it quiet, but that was just what they had decided. And yet, it seemed that fate disagreed.

"You know, Sonic, I haven't seen Amy chasing you around for a while. You two haven't had a falling out, have you?"

"Oh no, not at all, Vanilla. I think she's finally realising that I'm not interested in her that way. I just want to keep her as a friend, and I think she's learned to accept that."

"Well, I think it's a shame. I think the two of you would have made a really cute couple." Tails began to itch.

"I'm not going to pretend to reciprocate her feelings, Vanilla. That would have only hurt her more when she found out." Now, Sonic could have stopped there, but he wouldn't be Sonic if he didn't play dangerously. So, he therefore added:

"My tastes are a bit more… unique."

Tails could have sworn he saw the elder rabbit's face twitch at that last statement, as if she was trying to process the possible meanings of that last sentence. He turned to glare at Sonic, who decided to increase the risk factor by blowing the fox a kiss, which made him blush profusely.

This didn't go unnoticed by the now suspicious rabbit. Had Tails still been paying attention to her, he'd have seen her face turn pale.

"W-wait." The shift in her tone-of-voice was so sudden that it almost felt as though the room had cooled by about a million degrees. "Don't tell me you're… one of them…" Suddenly, the mood turned sour. Tails' itch had now been replaced by a bubbling anger.

"Excuse me?! What's that supposed to mean?!" Vanilla was quick to stand, grabbing her daughter as she rose.

"You too, Miles? Please, tell me you're joking."

"Why would we be joking? Is it really so bad?"

"It's… unnatural! Of course it is!"

"Do you really think we care about what's natural?! In case you hadn't noticed, Vanilla, I'm a fox with two tails that can fly, and my boyfriend here is a hedgehog that can run at the speed of sound! What's natural about that?"

There it was. The confirmation she had been dreading. Boyfriends.

"You are disgusting. I can't believe I let my daughter be friends with your kind!" Cream had been silently sobbing throughout this entire ordeal. She, as innocent as she was, obviously didn't share her mother's views. Honestly, she didn't know what the problem was. All she knew was that her usually kind mother was tearing into her oldest friend(s), and it didn't sound like there was going to be a way to fix this rift. She braved a glance over at Tails, hoping she could get his attention, but he was still arguing with her mother, so she decided to turn her attention to Sonic. He also looked pretty mad, but he was sticking to the side-lines due to his injury. In a split second, he spotted the young bunny, and his expression softened ever so slightly. With only her eyes, she silently pleaded with him to make them stop.

Which he did.

"Ok, that's enough!" Instantly, the living room fell into a deafening silence, save for some subtle growls (yes, growls) from Tails.

"Yes, Vanilla, Tails and I are gay and we're dating, but that does not give you the right to insult us the way you just did. I'm sorry that our way of life doesn't agree with your sensitive sensibilities, but just like I won't pretend to love Amy, I won't pretend not to love Tails. If you can't accept that, the door's right behind you." After a few moments of stunned silence, Vanilla turned around and stormed off, slamming the door behind her.

At which moment, Tails just collapsed, the tears that he wouldn't dare allow to fall in front of Vanilla flowing freely now. Sonic was with him in seconds, hushing him with gentle strokes along his back. But the fox couldn't stop himself. Not even Sonic's chants of "it's ok, it's ok" could console him. Even though these were completely different circumstances from back then, all Tails could think about were those bullies from all those years ago, before he had even met Sonic. The things they had said to him, about him, had just been brought flooding back. Freak.

And so, he kept on crying, at which point Sonic had to admit defeat. So, he did the only other thing he knew how to do: he called Amy.

Well, this was a tough chapter to write… I already know that some people are probably going to say that this was quite out of character when compared to what else we've seen of Cream's mother, but I'd say that with Amy out of the picture, I needed someone else to not be ok with this, and due to her age, Vanilla seemed like the most logical choice.

Unfortunately, I know that situations like this are all too common for people in the LGBTQ+ community. When I came out as bi, my parents thankfully didn't react as strongly as Vanilla here, but they weren't as supportive as I hoped they'd be. I think they always hoped it would be a phase. But, as Sonic said, I'm not going to pretend to not like someone, whether they be male, female or anything in between. I'm not ashamed of my bisexuality. It's as much a part of me as my Asperger's Syndrome (Autism). If any of my readers are also part of the LGBTQ+ community (or the Autistic Spectrum for that matter), or even if you're not, then I hope you can be just as unashamed!

Anyway, I shan't go on about it, as this chapter is already running quite long! In any case, I hope you enjoyed. I'll try to get back to a more frequent release schedule again. I've also decided that I'm going to be splitting the story into ACTS (just like Sonic game levels (aren't I clever?!)). The prologue (Chapter 1) is, well, the prologue; the next three chapters were Act I, and this chapter marks the beginning of Act II. I don't know how many acts I'll do, nor do I know how many chapters will be in each one, but I hope it's a format that you can all get behind! Anyway, long Author's Note is long, so I'll wrap it up here! Hope to see you all in the next chapter! Ciao for now!

OnTheSpectrum