Cream was as distracted as the last time she'd ridden with him, looking out of the window at the snowy scenery racing past at well beyond whatever the local speed limit was. Human laws were for humans anyway.

"I can take off if you'd prefer to get there quicker." Miles said, again.

"That's alright, Mister Tails. It's nice to see things from the ground sometimes, too." Cream finally broke her staring contest with the outdoors to glance at him. "...Shouldn't you be looking at the road?"

"Autopilot works pretty much the same wherever you are." Miles shrugged. "Just more stuff to avoid down here."

"I see." Cream tapped a finger on her cheek. "Maybe we should fly?"

"You saying you don't trust me?"

"I trust you, Mister Tails." Cream smiled at him. "I'm sure I'm perfectly safe with you."

She leaned closer, not breaking eye contact. Miles stiffened slightly.

"I'm not so sure about anyone on the road in front of you though. Perhaps we should fly?" She batted her lashes at him.

"Alright, fine." Miles tapped a button. The Vortex lurched into the sky, wings and rotors slicing out of the hull to bear them aloft with a hum of the engines. "Woulda been fine though." He pouted.

"I'm sure it would have been, Mister Tails." Cream nodded, patting his hand. "So how have you been?"

"Fine." Miles shrugged. "Eggman's been on the quiet side this month. Spent most of the time just setting up labs while Sonic caught up with some friends."

"That sounds… nice."

"Keeps me busy. How about you?"

Miles liked being busy. Like the gentle tones of Cream updating him in excruciating detail about the various comings and goings of people visiting her - yep, Charmy, hypothesis confirmed - activities with her mother, baking… Being busy kept his mind occupied, kept him in the present - more or less. To be idle was to let his mind wander onto endless tangents, or worse, drift back to darker times, regrets, failures, fighting…

"You don't talk too much, do you Mister Tails?" Cream's wide brown eyes loomed large in his vision as she peered up at him from far too close.

"Uh, well, I do sometimes? Just gotta... turn it on, you know?" Miles' attempt to slowly lean away from the rabbit's proximity were mirrored by Cream and shut down by the door, leaving her closer than before.

"Oh, you just don't feel like "turning it on" with me?" Cream twitched her ears, looking up at him with a finger resting on her lower lip.

Miles smiled, inwardly panicking. Was he going to have to think up conversation topics? She probably didn't want to hear about him calibrating his lab's missile array or making risk assessments regarding the flammability of his lab versus a discrete quantity of Christmas cheer. Nobody needed to hear about the weird fox boy who didn't "get" normal stuff. What, were they going to try and 'teach him the true meaning of christmas'? Wait. She was staring at him.

"Well... I guess I really like listening to you." He rubbed the back of his head with a grin. "Your voice is really lovely after all."

"Oh." Cream retreated, twirling the tips of her ears on her lap. "Um. I see you've been working on what we talked about."

"Huh?"

"About you trying to be less timid."

"Oh, that." Miles' tails twitched. "Yeah. I… tried that. Didn't work out for me."

Cream perked up, leaning forward. "Oh?"

"Yep." He shrugged. "It's fine. I was being dumb anyway. Just heat of the moment stuff."

The rabbit crept closer again, her own tail twitching.

"Really? What happened?"

"Oh hey, guess we're here."

Cream paused, glancing out of the window.

"... Mister Tails?"

"Uh, yeah?"

"You know we're not actually there at all, right?"

"... Yeah."

"And you were just trying to avoid talking about it?"

"That's right, yeah." Miles nodded.

"... Couldn't you have just said you didn't want to talk about it?" She tilted her head at him with a frown.

"Well, yeah, but I figured if I said we were here, then we had this conversation about us not actually being here yet, and then had this follow up explanation regarding my scheme-" The Vortex landed on the tarmac with a thud, Amy's apartment looming outside. "Then we'd arrive and your attempts to continue the conversation would ultimately be interrupted by Amy banging on the window."

Cream stared at him silently for a moment, then burst out laughing.

"You are a very clever fox, Mister Tails." A finger reached out to hover in front of her nose. "But isn't Miss Amy still inside?"

Miles frowned. "Look, I said something dumb. I wasn't thinking straight. It didn't go down well, and it could have gone a lot worse. Learned my lesson, won't do it again, alright?"

"But-"

A loud banging filled the interior of the cabin, Amy's grinning face peered through the passenger window.

Cream shot Miles a look. He retorted with a smug grin.

"Hi, guys!" Amy grinned, wrapping her arms around Cream as she lunged partway into the compartment. "Sorry it took a second, had to lock up."

"No worries, I figured as much." Miles smiled easily, prompting another look from Cream. "So how are you doing, Amy? Managing to stay warm in this weather?"

"You bet." Amy grinned, looking like she was going to lunge at Miles as well before hesitating. "I got this nice warm jacket, after all." She raised her arms, showing off a coat very similar to his own.

Wait.

"Hey, isn't that my jacket?" He'd given it to her when she'd been cold one outing.

"It was." Amy looked smug. "Miiine now."

"Well, alright. Glad you're getting good use out of it."

"Tch. You could at least have pretended to be upset." Amy pouted.

"Ah. No. Stop. You fiend." Miles stared at her evenly. "Get in and shut the door."

"You're terrible. Has he been terrible to you too, Cream?"

"He has been very mean, Miss Amy." Cream nodded gravely.

"Nuh uh! I've been very nice!" Miles raised his hands to ward off any pending hammers - at least any pending hammers that might damage his machinery - but Amy just shook her head, glaring at him the whole time.

"A likely story. You're making it up to us with hot chocolate."

"Yes!"

"And cupcakes."

"Yes!"

Miles rolled his eyes. "Fine. Just get in."

Amy glanced at the two seated interior. "Going to be pretty tight."

Miles punched his dashboard, the two seats telescoped together, providing an extra seat's worth of space between them.

"Why didn't you do that when we were flying before, Mister Tails?"

"Like I'd want you messing with me more while I'm trying to drive?"

"I thought you had autopilot?" Cream batted her lashes at him.

"Why did I even agree to come?" Miles banged his head down onto the dashboard, narrowly, and thankfully, missing a button.

"Mm… Because you like the abuse?" Amy grinned. "Move over hun."

"But I wanted to sit by the window and look at the lights!"

Amy looked like she wanted to say something, but after a glance at Cream's earnest face, and Miles' own expression, she clambered over the bunny, squeezing in next to Miles, who jabbed his controls with a frown. The door slammed shut, rotor blades and parts slicing through the space around the Vortex as it transformed back into a car and lurched into motion. Miles gave her a look that was as grim as it was serious and dignified.

"Now, now. Don't pout." The pink hedgehog cracked a cheeky grin. "You know you missed me too, my favourite-"

"Only." Miles slipped onto the busier main street. Better lights for Cream to gawp at. You'd have thought living just outside Nights Casino Zone she'd have had her fill of light pollution.

"Favourite fox in the whole wide world."

"We talked on messenger this morning."

"That doesn't count."

Probably because him being around meant Sonic was nearby. Miles sighed as they hit a pedestrian crossing, watching a happy human family already laden with brightly coloured cargo scurry across. If she was sunny with her friends, she was a supernova around Sonic.

Probably why she crashed and burned so often.

Fingers lightly pinched the tip of his ear.

"Ah! Driving!" He twitched the ear in dismay, but Amy held it fast.

"I said." Amy leaned close, her face inches from his own. "Have you really been being nice to Cream? You don't ignore her like you do me, do you?"

"I don't ignore you. I just… forget to speak sometimes. Is all."

"Mhm." Amy stared at him half-lidded. "You're lucky you're cute."

"I am not!"

"You are an adorable bundle of fluff and joy, Mister Tails." Cream murmured quietly, not looking from the Christmas lights outside, pale as they were in the middle of the day.

Amy looked smug.

Miles sighed again, navigating towards a parking garage close to Station Square's shopping district. Cream spent too much time around Amy or naturally shared Amy's love for trying to fry his upper brain functions.

Actually Rouge did that too. Was this a girl thing? Girls were hard.

"So…?"

Miles mentally reviewed the conversation. "Yes, I've been nice to Cream. She's not as much trouble as you are, after all."

"I am not trouble."

"You are an unpredictable and often destructive force of nature, Miss Amy."

"Watch your lights!" Amy snapped.

On second thought, Cream was a sweet and observant young lady with a keen eye and maybe he should trust her judgement.

He still wasn't adorable though.

"Alright, really need to park, want to let go of me?"

"Fine." Amy complied, still sulking. "Good luck finding a spot though. Place is packed."

"Did you forget what we're riding?" Miles grinned.

"No blowing anything up!"

"I wouldn't!" Not now at least. "But you're forgetting one thing the Vortex can do these other cars can't."

"Hm? Are you going to fly, Mister Tails?"

"Where's the fun in that?" He tapped the controls, cabin rising off the ground as the Vortex sprouted two legs and a good thirty percent of its weapon systems, walking to settle neatly on a spot at the end of a row too narrow for any car.

"There we go!" Miles grinned as the chicken walker mech settled down into a reversed kneeling position and popped open the door, racing around to open the passenger door. "Plenty of room now."

"Thank you, Mister Tails!" Cream brightly hopped to the ground, fluttering her ears to slow her descent. In warmer months when her pet chao stopped sleeping most of the day away she'd have been almost as proficient a flyer as he was with its assistance.

"You are such a dork." Amy took his proffered hand to slip down from the raised cabin.

"You're just jealous you can't park this easily." Miles smirked, clapping his hands together. The headlights on the Vortex flashed with a beep-beep as the alarm, and several point defence cannons, activated. "Now, um, did you want to shop first or go get that hot choc-"

"Yes!"