"Remind me again how your very elaborate and functional schedule works?"

"Nope!"

"Can you at least tell me why we're on babysitter duty?"

Jet's feathers blew softly with the wind, though his ponytail made sure they stayed out of his very unamused-looking face. He made a good call bringing his new dark green bomber jacket and gloves, seeing as how the day was somewhat chilly so far. The weather report said it would only last for the morning, but Jet insisted on packing half his bag with warm clothes anyways.

Cream and Charmy seemed to be more mindful of their clothing choices. Cream was wearing her usual orange dress and shoes, though she also had on shorts, knee-high socks and an additional vest that could be easily removed, as well as a matching orange and yellow visor. Charmy had a brown aviator jacket over a short-sleeved shirt, his usual goggles and… still no pants. Not that it was that unusual for mobians not to wear pants (Jet himself had no pants on), Sonic just found it funny that the bee never put any on no matter the occasion.

And then there were Sonic, Tails and Wave, who didn't make an effort to put something nice on. Wave had her usual white tube top and pants on, while the other two were only decked in gloves and shoes. How they didn't get cold, Jet doesn't know, but that was the least of his concerns at the moment. His number one concern was getting the very heavy bags of groceries he was carrying out of his hands and inside the airship as soon as possible. Oh how he missed Storm.

"It's the new airship's test flight, and I owed Vanilla a favor for breaking into her house and borrowing Cream's crayons without asking. We're going to be swapping crew members pretty much every day, but I thought it'd be cool to let them be the first ones. What do you think, guys?"

"Hell yeah!"

"Woah, language!" Sonic immediately covered Tails' ears as Charmy exclaimed that, earning an annoyed grunt from the fox.

"Vector lets me say curse words, it's okay." Charmy boasted.

"Then fuck yeah little buddy! Wait, does Vanilla even let you hear curse words, Cream?"

"She's not here right now. Thank you so much for inviting us here, mister Sonic."

Tails pulled himself out of Sonic's grasp at last, tidying his fur. "I can say curse words too, I'm older than Charmy!"

"Hm… you get three for the entire trip." Sonic made a "how does that sound?" gesture with her arms.

"Well fuck you too then."

Tails and Charmy high-fived. Sonic looked exasperated for a brief moment, but then nodded to himself as if agreeing that was a good use of his limited curse words. Jet rolled his eyes, deeply unamused by the whole conversation.

"Wave, the ramp. Please."

Wave didn't look like she was paying much attention to anything besides her phone – probably texting Rouge if he had to guess. He watched as she took the airship's remote out of her pocket and pressed the button to lower the ramp. Jet noted the process was much quicker than what he remembered, even the ramp itself was lacking its signature rust.

"You and Tails really did a number on the old blimp, huh?"

"We didn't even need to go that crazy on the tech. This thing was made almost a century ago, pretty much all the parts have a more efficient and compact updated version. Putting them together was a bit trickier, but fox boy over there has plenty of experience with planes and the sort."

"Cool, cool. Tell me the details after we take off, my fingers are going numb."

Jet hushed inside as soon as the ramp stopped. That was… completely different from a week ago! Even though he was expecting some changes due to the gondola being quite a bit larger than he remembered it, he was still surprised by how much more spacious and open the interior was. It wasn't a maze of metallic tunnels anymore, but rather a large open corridor that branched into a multitude of rooms. Everything of importance was now located inside the main structure, and the outside parts of the ship were turned into a sort of semi-covered sightseeing area.

The one thing about the gentrification of the airship Jet didn't mind was that now each room was properly labeled with cute little signs. It saved him a couple minutes of walking around looking for the kitchen – which was also much neater and compliant with food safety regulations.

With the groceries stocked and his hands no longer under strain, he went ahead to look at the bedrooms. There were three of them in total, each with a double bunk bed, a desk and a restroom. There used to be four, but it looked like one of them was repurposed into a small bathroom with a shower. Jet was about to enter one of the bedrooms at random before he was pulled away from the door by a gloved hand.

"Woah woah, calm down! We still have to decide the room pairs!" Sonic turned him around so he could face the rest of the crew. He looked around somewhat nervously.

"…Wave?"

"Cream wants me to stay in the same room as her so I can teach her redstone."

"Since when do you know how to play Minecraft?"

"I don't, but I've taken a look at it and it looks like a simplified version of logic circuits. I was just going to hook her up with a Boolean logic calculator and some gate diagrams, but she insisted I w—"

"Shut up, I've heard enough." Jet rolled his eyes at Wave's shrug, turning his attention to Charmy. "Bee…kid? Don't tell me Tails is going to stay with you to teach you how to play Fortnite or whatever."

"What? Fortnite is like a last year meme, dude. Tails is gonna teach me how to set up an Arduino."

"I've never felt so old."

"Come on, Flicky, do you really want to avoid being in the same room as me that bad?" Sonic gave him a smirk and a small pat on the back, which caused him to shiver. He knew that was going to end up happening.

"Yes."

"Us jocks have to stick together, y'know? Let these nerds mess with their circuits or whatever all they want, we're going to be having the real fun!" Before anyone could comment on how weird that sentence sounded, Sonic took his bag off his back and set it on the ground. He unzipped the front opening and took out a small pile of board games.

"Look, this version of Guess Who? has me in it! Isn't that cool? I'm like, the only blue one in here so it's sort of an instant loss if you end up with me, but that only makes it even more exciting."

Jet took a deep breath, and pretty much everyone there took a step back expecting him to shout at Sonic. Instead, he kept his voice low but with more than a hint of annoyance.

"Do I need to remind you why we're here? We're here to gather up the last remains of the Babylonian civilization so I can have some closure with the ancestors I'm thoroughly embarrassing each second that passes. That's why I'm here anyways, I don't know what you guys are doing here."

A knot formed inside Jet's stomach once he noticed Sonic's excited expression slowly fade into a frown. Everyone else had stopped playing and joking too, but he didn't care that much about them. Not until he realized he didn't, at least. He started feeling extra bad once he noticed he was ignoring everyone else that had come to support him in favor of shutting the hedgehog's annoying (yet harmless) attitude down.

Everyone remained there in silence for a few moments, until Jet himself turned around to walk towards the control room. "Gonna start the ship. Retreat the ramp, close the doors and sit down somewhere."

He was quick to get away from the sad silence he had caused, climbing a short ladder so he could reach the platform the control panel was located at. Like everything else, it was more modern and less spacious than before – but the layout fortunately remained the same. The airship's control panel was one of the few advanced machines he had learned how to deal with, and he didn't want even more of his usefulness to be taken away.

Jet braced himself for the ear-splitting noise the old engines used to make, but all he got in response to his button presses and lever flips was a low-pitched hum. The airship leaned upwards once the takeoff sequence began, though luckily everyone was already holding tight in their seats. The ship straightened out once more once it had reached a suitable altitude.

He leaned forward into the control panel resting his head in between his crossed arms. Why couldn't he just stop being a prick once he acknowledged the fact that he was being one? That was how it was supposed to work, right? Sure, he wasn't trying as hard as he could and he didn't stop to think before saying anything, but…

Oh, that was probably it.

He raised his head up to look at the sky in front of him through the large window. Autopilot had already taken over for him, so he could dedicate himself to stare at the sea of clouds while he reflected on his behavior. Being a good person was so hard, he had no clue how Sonic did it.

Sonic… Of course, all his thoughts eventually led back to Sonic. That stupid blue hedgehog that wouldn't leave his head no matter how hard he tried. Jet loathed him – and for no good reason. Maybe Rouge was right and it was all just envy. He couldn't deny there was some envy involved, but he didn't know if it was really what was causing his mental state to go wild.

Jet just hoped it wasn't really a crush. He was doing a terrible job of making Sonic want to be with him.

He couldn't just take that back now, couldn't he? He couldn't just gather everyone and say, "I was kidding guys I'm here to have fun with you on this silly little cruise!". That would be lying to everyone including himself, and he was a terrible liar. He could just shift his attitude without commenting on it, which was easier said than done. That would mean he'd need to… actually think about the consequences his actions had on other people. How crazy was that? Jet could never.

The old Jet could never. When they first stumbled into the topic, Jet wasn't too sure that was actually a thing. He didn't change at all from his fourteen-year-old self, everything else changed around him. But that didn't mean there wasn't still room for change! Jet uncurled from his feathery little ball of pity and struck a pose to no one in particular. That was it! He would turn himself into a new Jet, and… figure what his deal with Sonic was along the way. Now, if only there was an easy first opportunity to prove he was capable of being a good person if he really tried…

Conveniently enough, the easy first opportunity gently tugged his tail and stepped away so as to not get hit by it when he turned around in surprise.

"Um… mister Jet?" Cream was holding something behind her back, but Jet couldn't make out what exactly it was. "Are you busy?"

"Nah." That… came out a little weird, but it was the least aggressive way of saying that he could think of. "What's up?"

"You're good with extreme gear, right?" She asked, a tiny smile on her face. Jet had to scoff a little.

"You could say that, yeah. Though I have no clue about how they work, you should go talk to Wave if that's what you need."

"Oh no, it's nothing like that!" Cream finally revealed what she was carrying: a pair of extreme gear skates! The orange and yellow color matched the rest of her outfit, and the soles were reinforced to allow the wearer to grind on rails.

"My mom bought these for me thinking they were regular skates. She said they're too fast and dangerous and told me not to use them on my own before I could get a teacher. I was wondering if you could… teach me?"

"Me? Hah, I'm the best extreme gear rider in the whole world! Of course I can! We took off already though, it's gonna have to wait until our next stop. Should be tomorrow at best. Not enough space in here for that."

"Oh no, that's not an issue! I asked Wave about it and she said there's an empty room we could use. Here, I'll take you there." Cream casually grabbed Jet's hand (he didn't mind) and set out for said room.

She waved at Charmy and Tails as they passed through the main hall. Jet felt a little bad seeing Sonic wasn't there with him, but he shook it off. He was probably unpacking his bags or running around or eating all the groceries. Nothing he needed to worry about probably. Hopefully.

Their destination was a hatch located right by the airship's entrance. Cream went ahead and went down first after opening it for them. Jet had no idea something like that could fit even the new airship! It was a mostly empty chamber mirroring the shape of the living space above them. There was a set of grind rails distributed along the thick padded walls, as well as an air pit at the end of the room.

"Since when has the entire World Grand Prix been in my blimp?"

"Tails told me he was the one who came up with the idea! Wave was skeptical it'd work at first, but… well, now she's skeptical it was worth it. But she admitted it was a job well done at least."

"Sounds like Wave." He muttered to himself, realizing he had left his board in the kitchen with the groceries and the rest of his things. Oh well. "Show me what you know, I guess. Boards are my thing, but I've used skates for some time as well. Beats bikes by a longshot, never get one of those. Also never use the air pit if you can afford it, always do tricks or grind instead."

Cream sat on the floor so she could put the skates on. The electronic components lit up and started emitting a high-pitched hum as the air coursed through the gear. Jet helped her get up and she was soon dashing through the room. She visibly lost balance here and there but never actually fell. Her technique was pretty solid overall, Jet was a little clueless on what exactly she needed to be taught.

"I mean, you didn't fall. That's pretty good if you're really just starting to learn, I guess."

"Thanks, mister Jet!" She gave him a smile and slowly made her way up to him. "But that's not good enough for me. I want to go fast, like you do on TV. I've talked to Wave and she said it's not the gear's fault I'm going too slow."

"Hmmm…" Jet raised a hand to his beak, thinking. "Do another lap around the room. I'll see if I can spot anything."

Cream nodded and went at it again. Jet now paid close attention to her movements, trying to recall everything he had learned in the short time he practiced with gear skates. They consumed the least fuel of all the types of gear, but their default speed was also the slowest. Well-timed boost usage and air recoveries were the big things to have in mind with that kind of gear, as well as good body movements and smaller stances to maximize one's aerodynamics. Cream lacked… pretty much all of those. Now, to say that in a nice way…

"Okay, okay, I've seen enough." He waved at Cream, who diverted her lap so she could come directly to him. "Well, for starters, you're only boosting at the start of each lap. You should be boosting pretty much every time except right before curves and when your air is low."

"Is that so?" Cream tilted her head sideways slightly. "How do I figure out when it's low enough, though? Besides the beeping when it's about to run out."

"You just have to get a feel for it. Count how many times you can boost from a full air tank, then how many times you can boost after a second of grinding and drifting. You have to do the math in your head to figure out how much air you have in your gear at all times."

"I never thought extreme gear was so deep! Not to say that I'm not enjoying it so far, I really am, there's just more to it than I was expecting." She gave him a sheepish smile, rubbing the back of her neck.

"Mhm! That's what extreme gear racing is at its most basic level," he smirked, glad to be able to teach someone while flaunting his knowledge, "it's a resource management game."

"I think I get it now!" Cream nodded excitedly.

"You're on the right track. There's some details that are going to make you go much faster, but you have to nail down the basics first."

"Thank you so much for helping me out, mister Jet! I hope I can get as good as you some day."

"I doubt it." He scoffed. "But you can get as good as the second best racer, so you can still be the number one eventually either way."

That didn't come out very nice, but he was glad Cream was still able to get a laugh out of it.

Jet sat by the corner of the room and continued to watch her have a go at it, shouting advice and suggestions at her every once in a while. Sure enough, after a few hours of practice he didn't even need to chime in anymore. Her form was still far from perfect, but it was still very viable. She could probably steamroll all the championships in her age range and even some of the bottom racers on the global lineup. For any further improvement, she'd have to get help from someone who specialized in racing with gear skates and could teach her all their nuances. But this was a very good start for her career!

That is, if she even wanted to pursue it as a career of course. He imagined it would still be very fun for her to beat all the other twelve year olds in a casual setting as well. Or even just race on her own to push her urban maneuvering capabilities even further. The possibilities were endless, extreme gear riding was just fun no matter the context!

Chaos, how many hours had it been? It only felt like maybe one or two, but checking his phone revealed six whole hours had passed. Cream only took a couple of small water breaks, her impressive endurance also helped Jet lose his sense of time. In fact, they only realized it was probably time to stop for the day when Tails came to pretty much drag Jet to the kitchen.

"Wave told me you used to cook for the Rogues, so I need you to help me. I've never cooked for this many people before, only Sonic and maybe Shadow."

"You can cook? I thought you two just ordered takeout every day."

"Yeah, I cook! Why is that so surprising?" The fox raised an eyebrow, walking alongside Jet towards the kitchen.

"I dunno, you're a nerd. Nerds don't cook." He shrugged.

"I mean, cooking is pretty similar to chemistry, or programming, or whatever nerd activity you want to use for the metaphor. Just get the right components and follow the instructions, it's as simple as that."

"Clever, but I'm still teasing you for it."

They bumped into Sonic along the way and he looked… fine! His mood didn't seem to drop at all after seeing Jet, so that was a good sign at least. He had suggested they make some chilli dogs for dinner, but they decided against it (after Sonic was already gone). Getting sick hundreds of feet in the air wasn't something they wished upon anyone, especially since it was their first day of traveling. It was better to reduce the chances of that happening by cooking something light.

Tails was in charge of preparing the mac and cheese itself, while Jet was in charge of preparing the spices as well as making a side dish. The two got a pretty good flow soon enough! Tails had almost as much brains as Wave had, and didn't shout nearly as much as him. The only time he did shout at Jet was for almost putting "too much" paprika into the mix. He pretended to settle for Tails' preferred amount, but put the rest of the paprika in when the fox wasn't looking.

It was pretty obvious what he had done, since the mac and cheese turned out much redder than it was supposed to be. Tails just glared at him for a short while before doing a taste test. Not bad! Jet had also made a simple salad in the meantime, so they could say they had salad (didn't need to say whether they ate it or not!) in case Vanilla asked if they were eating healthy.

The dinner went without a hitch. The room initially went silent when Jet and Tails arrived, but the conversation soon became livelier than ever when they revealed the dinner. Everyone seemed to enjoy it – especially Sonic. He and Jet even traded taunts and jabbed at one another as if nothing had happened earlier. Maybe nothing did happen earlier and he was just blowing the situation out of proportion, who knows! Jet didn't want to think about that, he was having fun for once.

"Is your person Sonic?"

"No, is yours?"

"No, we can play this round."

After a quick shower, everyone said goodnight to each other and retreated into their rooms. Jet's heart skipped a beat once he remembered he'd have to spend every night of the trip in the same room as Sonic, but his worries quickly dissolved when the hedgehog brought out the board games yet again.

Much like their racing score, they were evenly tied in their hundreds of matches of "Guess Who?". They had only been playing for about an hour or so, but matches tended to end pretty quickly due to how poorly thought out that particular edition of the game was. A simple "is your person a mobian" already eliminated half the possibilities, and like previously brought up, ending up with Sonic as your selected person was pretty much an insta-loss.

But it was fun! At least Jet was having fun. It was nice to settle down and have some friendly competition that didn't involve dashing through the landscape at hundreds of miles per hour. Sure, it wasn't nearly as deep or… well, fun, but it was still a pretty good time.

Although it was quiet. Way too quiet for Jet's liking. Of course, both of them were asking the standard game questions and taunting at each other incessantly during the game, but the noise of the wind rushing beside their ears wasn't there. Only the quiet hum of the airship's new engines – which Jet had found out were powered by Tails' chaos emerald by default. It gave him way too much time to think.

Sonic was right there in front of him, and oh boy did he feel…warm. When he was up close and personal with Sonic like that, the mystery feeling that tormented him oh so much didn't feel at all like envy. He didn't want Sonic gone, quite the contrary. He wished their "Guess Who?" binging would never end. He wanted to take Sonic outside and quietly watch the night sky with him, but that would be a pretty dead giveaway something was up with him. The small window in their shared bedroom would have to do.

"Hey," Jet leaned backwards on the crappy plastic chair, pushing the board away from him and towards Sonic as to say he wanted to take a small break, "can I ask you something?"

"Tired of losing? Sure, lay it on me Flicky."

Jet's reaction to the nickname was now a mere furrowing of his eyebrows. "It's about fans. Y'know, since you're famous and all that. How do you deal with the more annoying ones?"

"Huh? Depends what you mean by annoying," Sonic shrugged, "but the last one I've really had an issue with was Amy."

"Amy? The pink hedgehog that was with you at the world grand prix and the ark of the cosmos thing? She sounded pretty annoying, yeah." Jet shrugged.

"Yeah, she was. But we've talked it through thankfully." Sonic rubbed his gloved hands softly, reminiscing of the times she dragged him off somewhere to yell at him. "All that stuff about pretending to be my girlfriend was… well, it was more like she was trying to convince herself of it than me."

Jet raised an eyebrow in confusion, so Sonic continued, "Like you know, the whole societal pressure of finding a partner and all that. It hit Amy particularly hard, and since I was the person she looked up to the most she sorta tried to make do with me. Even after there was nobody pressuring her anymore, she still kept at it so she could feel… complete, I guess?"

"Oh. Wow." Jet didn't expect it to get so deep. "I'm… glad she's figured herself out, yeah."

"It's still in progress, but she's not doing anything as extreme as what you saw at the world grand prix. It's… actually fun to hang out with her now! If anything, her being clingy made me want to hang out with her more! Not in a I miss her nagging me way, more like… she's actually fun to be around now, you know?"

"Yeah, I know." Jet nodded, instinctively moving his hand to flip over the Sonic portrait on his board. He was taking notes in his mind.

"Anyways! Geez, I monologued again. I don't know what's with you that makes me want to run my mouth off. What's the fan that's troubling you like? Anything like Amy?" Sonic leaned forwards with his elbows on the small desk, looking up at Jet curiously.

"Not really, it's not that extreme. They're… well, I'm not sure if I can really call them a fan. They cheer for me most of the time, but it feels like they're still unsure whether they're my fan or not. Like they're… embarrassed by it almost?"

"Hm… I mean, if your job was something like a pop singer, there'd be a real reason to be embarrassed about being your fan. A stupid reason, but an understandable one. But extreme gear racing is like… a hobby that's for all ages and kinds of people, so I don't know what they're on about."

"Yeah, me neither. It's not like they cheer for other racers either, so I don't know what's wrong with them." Jet let out a sigh.

"Maybe they have some other issues to work out before they fully commit to cheering for you." Sonic brought up. Jet thought about it for a moment, averting his gaze towards the small window to the starry sky outside.

"I'm sure they do."

Author's note: Just a quick disclaimer. The Amy behavior explanation was inspired by the version of Amy from the fic "Sonic and the Green Eyed Monster" by supafroot (go check it out, it's on Ao3 only). I'm not trying to plagiarize them or anything like that, and I'm willing to change it if it's too similar. I just think it's a neat explanation that doesn't reduce Amy's behavior to "silly Amy was abusive because that's just how teenage girls are". I'm not going in depth about her growing out of that behavior, for that you should... probably read to a fic by supafroot themselves, if they ever release one.