All characters belong to Sega/Archie except my OCs.

Chapter 5

Sonic

"Did you kiss her," Knuckles asked Tails who blushed furiously. At the moment, we were all hanging out in my room. Since Tails was the only one who actually went to homecoming the night before, we decided to grill him about his date.

"No," Tails murmured, looking down in embarrassment.

"Why not," I asked. Tails glanced at him, turning a deeper shade of red.

"Because we're just going to take things slow, I think. It's easier that way." Knuckles and I looked to each other and shrugged. We both knew that Tails was also more reserved with girls so we had to let him be. It was bold enough that he even asked Cream out in the first place. Usually, he would wait around until the girl initiated that she wanted to go out in the first place. He surprised us when he just asked Cream straight out if she would go to the dance with him. We weren't surprised when he came clean about his crush on her though. That was pretty much obvious.

I'd been friends with Tails and Knuckles since we were in preschool. It all started when someone was picking on Tails so I stepped in to help but that didn't do any good. So, Knuckles decided to kick the kid's ass for messing with us. Ever since then, we'd been the best of friends. We knew everything about each other and we were always trying to help with our situations. Since Tails' parents were druggies, Knuckles and I often let him sleepover our houses so that he wouldn't have to witness their broken states. We also helped him out with his small inventions during science fairs and such. We supported his dreams no matter how big they seemed for kids like us. We both knew that he could do. Knuckles, on the other hand, Tails and I supported by just understanding his mood swings. Most people can't handle how he's happy one minute and the next wants to punch the wall in. He was born with his bipolar condition so we only accepted him as he was. Besides, he wasn't as bad as most people make him out to be. Really, all he had was a bad temper. Still, he did have to therapy classes and support groups. Tails and I went with him sometimes when he didn't want to go alone. Knuckles knew that he were there for him no matter what.

"What did you guys do last night anyway," Tails asked, adjusting his glasses that had fallen down his nose a bit.

"Played Call of Duty online together. I kicked Knuckles' ass," I said with a teasing smirk to my friend. Knuckles only shook his head at me as he grumbled under his breath. He wasn't a sore loser but he did hate it when he lost. "So, back to you, did she look pretty?"

"Yea. She did," Tails said, his voice dropping down in bashfulness again. "I think she likes me though. I mean, she kissed me on the cheek when the night was over."

"That's a good sign." Tails shrugged, turning a deeper shade of red. While Knuckles and I were more experienced with girls, Tails wasn't. In fact, he was still a virgin – both lips and body. He's never kissed a girl nor has he ever had sex. That makes him more innocent in our group which balanced out well. Knuckles was the tough one, I was the crazy one and Tails was the innocent one. Our friendship was pretty balanced.

We talked for a couple more hours before Tails and Knuckles left out. After I walked them to the door, I walked into the kitchen where my mom was smoking a joint. She smiled widely at me when she noticed my presence. I could tell from the glassy look in her eyes that she was already high. I rolled my eyes at her from behind the refrigerator door that I opened to look for a Gatorade. "Hi Sonic," she said.

"Hi," I muttered in response. I grabbed a random Gatorade bottle from the fridge and made a move to leave the kitchen but my mother spoke again.

"Do you wanna go to the store with me? We need some more food in the house. Plus, I was thinking that maybe we could go out for dinner and discuss some things."

"Alright," I said with a shrug. My mom beamed at me as she quickly put out the blunt and ran to put on some shoes. Once she was fully dressed, we headed out to the local supermarket. I helped her to pick out all the groceries we needed since she was still a bit too high to fully comprehend things. I was surprised that she drove us here safely. Then again, she's used to functioning when serious things are going on. It's just now that she can play around, she's choosing to. I could only hope that no one from school saw her. Although I was a freshman and no one really paid any attention to me, I didn't want to carry around the humiliation of a dancing mother in the middle of the supermarket. Having the workers see her was enough embarrassment but they had gotten used to her antics by now so they just ignored her. I tried to do the same as I practically picked out everything myself. I had done it enough times so it didn't really bother me too much.

It wasn't until we were in one of the almost empty frozen food aisles that she froze completely in her tracks. I only ignored her as I continued to look over the different Hot Pockets I would cook up on days when I didn't feel like making myself anything. Yea, my mom didn't cook often so I had to learn how to do it. Hell, I practically did everything in that stupid house. I did laundry, cooked, cleaned, paid the bills with my parents' credit cards and restocked up the food. It was as the two boneheads were my children. Funny since I was barely old enough to even be thinking about children. I could take care of them better than my own parents could though. That's actually a really sad fact.

I glanced at my mom to see her looking down at the floor, her eyes wide with an unrecognizable emotion. I raised an eyebrow before looking down the aisle to see what could possibly have made her high happy go away like that. Standing at the end of the aisle was my father and my brother. While Scourge was leaning against one of the refrigeration doors, my father was actually looking through them with a thoughtful hand on his chin. Now, I could see why my mom deflated so quickly. Not only was my dad still the handsome guy that he always was but now his spitting image, Scourge, was standing there next to him. That must have been a lot on her.

When my parents split up, it was my father who had left her. Apparently, she had cheated on him or something so he left and took Scourge with him. He had argued with my mother about taking me too but she complained that she wanted to be in at least one of her sons' lives. So, my father complied and just took Scourge. After that, he never bothered with me as my mother didn't bother with Scourge. It was an unspoken agreement that the other parent would have absolutely no say in how we were being raised. Or at least that's always what I thought it was. I realized as I got older that my mom was still in love with my father. She never wanted him to leave. She thought that he would look through her mistakes and still love her. Sadly, that didn't happen. When I was younger, she used to hate looking at me because I looked like him. Although I had her color features, my face was all him. It hurt me for her to ignore me but I learned to get over it. Sometimes I could only imagine what it would been like if she had taken Scourge – who looked exactly like our father – instead. She'd probably hang herself, honestly.

Scourge must have noticed eyes on him since he turned his blue eyes towards me. His eyes filled with the same confusion that mine probably did and he looked towards our father. I watched as he said something to him that caused our father to look in my mom and I's direction. Quickly, I diverted my attention back to what I was doing. Although my father wasn't that bad when I was still living with him, I had heard tons of rumors about the monster he had become. Surely, that would be enough to scare anyone. Maybe that's why my mom had frozen up so impulsively. She knew what he was capable of and if he was still holding a grudge over her then she definitely had every right to be scared.

"Maria," my father's deep, heavily accented voice called. I saw my mom flinch slightly at the corner of my eye. Slowly, she looked up at him to see that he was coming towards her with his hands in his pockets. Our father was a tall muscularly built man with short cut green hair, piercing almond shaped ice blue eyes, a sharp jaw and deeply tanned skin. He was good-looking and I was thankful I had inherited those good looks but he was evil. Maybe not to Scourge he wasn't but that man definitely didn't have a heart.

"Alejandro," my mom said as she forced a smile onto her face. "You look good," she told him once he stopped in front of her. Scourge had followed behind our father but stood closer to me. I gave him a questioning look but he only gave me a brief glare. Scourge definitely lived up to his nickname, I would give him that. He was mean to almost everyone unless he had reason otherwise. I found it as a huge surprise when he was so openly friendly to Amy and Dante from our counseling class. Maybe there was more to him behind the devious appearance or he was just trying to change. Either way, I could only hope that maybe he could benefit from whatever he was doing.

"So do you," my father replied before his eyes looked to me. "Javier, haven't you grown." I could only stare at him in response since I didn't particularly know what to say. I hadn't spoken to my father in years. What was there that I possibly could say? Luckily for me, my father diverted his attention back to my mother. He asked her if they could speak for a moment – out of our hearing. My mother looked reluctant but agreed to it. She told me that she would be right back before walking down the aisle with my father. I looked to Scourge who was kicking at imaginary dust with his shoes.

"Is there any point in trying to have a conversation with you," I asked. Scourge looked to me, confused by my sudden speech to him.

"Is there any point in trying to be nice to you," he retorted back, raising an eyebrow. I shrugged as I continued to push the cart along. Scourge walked with me, keeping a safe distance away. "What do you think they're talking about?"

"I don't know. I don't think mom expected to see you guys here so it can't be anything previously planned. What are you guys doing here anyway?"

"Food shopping duh," he said with a roll of his eyes. "I can see you guys are doing the same."

"I thought dad had other people to do this kind of thing for him."

"He does but he wanted to spend time with me for some reason. At first, I thought it would be something cool. Not a stupid trip to the supermarket."

"Yea, well, that's our father for you." We took a turn into another aisle frozen food aisle, our eyes looking around busily so there wouldn't be any need for eye contact. I found it funny since we used to be so close and now we can barely look at each other. But I guess that's what life in this stupid town does to you. We walked in silence for a while before my brother spoke again.

"I didn't see you at homecoming," he said quietly.

"Yea, I didn't go."

"But aren't you on the football team? I thought that was mandatory."

"I'm on the freshman football team," I corrected him. "But most of the varsity players go. Besides, I'm not really into that stuff anyway. I'm surprised you went." He shrugged.

"Well, I asked a girl to go so…"

"Do I know her?"

"Yea. Your partner in that counseling class. Amy."

"Oh. She's pretty." Scourge nodded, a small smile coming on his lips. I almost raised an eyebrow at him before he looked to me and his small smile faded. "You like her, don't you?" Quickly, he put his hand on the cart, stopping my movement. I looked to him in confusion before he rounded the cart so that he could stand in front of me.

"Can I talk to you? Brother to brother?" I narrowed my eyes.

"Since when have you we ever talked brother to brother?"

"Never but maybe that's because we've never had feelings for the same girl before." I raised both of my eyebrows.

"Excuse me?"

"I see the way you look at her. Besides, I'm not an idiot, Sonic. Everyone knows you like her." I rolled my eyes.

"Scourge, you're overthinking."

"How?"

"Because I don't like her…or at least not romantically. Sure, she's pretty and everything but I just don't see her that way."

"Not yet, anyway." I almost laughed at my brother. He couldn't be serious right now. I had showed absolutely no signs that I had any interest in Amy. Besides, it was obvious that she liked him back. I still remembered her questioning his character multiple times in class and asking me on his signals. We definitely were not looking to date each other any time soon.

"Scourge, you're acting as if I pose some type of threat."

"Because you are posing a threat. You don't hang around her as much as I do. She's always talking about you when we bring up certain things and I doubt she talks about me the same way."

"Okay, you wanna know what's really going on between us?" Scourge nodded. "We're just friends – barely. We do our assignments for that stupid class as well as our other classes that we have together because she asks me for help. If you haven't noticed, the girl is pretty shy. Besides, she doesn't even think you like her."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's kind of obvious that you're torn between her and her sister."

"I'm not torn between them. I like Amy. I do."

"Then why are you always trying to help out Rosy when she obviously don't seem to want much help from anyone?"

"Because," he answered swiftly. I raised an eyebrow but let it go. If we wanted to continue the tug of war with himself then that was fine but at least I knew where my feelings lied. I didn't have a crush on anyone at this very moment. I mean, sure, maybe I had a crush on Amy when I first saw her but I'm not ready for a relationship. I'm only 14 and she was too good of a girl to be hurt so early in high school.

"Just ask her out," I said with a shrug. "Save yourself the trouble." Scourge nodded.

"Okay." With that, we began to go on with our walking. But as we walked, I couldn't help but to let my mind drift to Amy. I mean, what was Scourge thinking when he said I liked her? I wasn't ready to harbor feelings like that yet. Not when I still had a lot on the line to lose already.

X

Scourge

"You look like shit," I told my partner as I sat down in the desk across from her. Rosy's jade eyes looked to me and I then noticed that they were watery. She blinked the moistness away as a glare placed over her features. I didn't know what she had to be mad about with me for. I did save her from being raped by some senior douchebag. All she had to do was say thank you and be on her way. But no, instead she had to spat out things that she knew would hurt me. How she read me so well, I wasn't quite sure but I did know that I didn't like it.

"Thanks. So do you…wait, I forgot, you always look like that," she snapped back. Honestly, the girl did look a bit on the bad side. It was obvious that whatever makeup she was trying to put on had been smudged viciously by something and her sad expression just made things worse. I wanted to ask her what was wrong, if there was anything I could do to help, if I could help her feel better… My contradicting feelings for this girl was starting to get annoying. One minute, she could piss me off so much that I would want absolutely nothing to do with her but the next, she just seemed as if she was about to break and I just wanted to be the glue that would hold her together. I had no idea why I felt this way about her but I just did…and I didn't like it.

"Are you always this defensive? I mean, even at homecoming, I did nothing wrong yet you just snapped out on me. What was that all about?"

"Maybe it has to do with the fact that I just don't like you." I rolled my eyes.

"You don't like anyone."

"Gee, thanks for that life-changing conclusion." I narrowed my eyes at her.

"What the hell is wrong with you? All I ever try to do sometimes is just be nice to you but you can never return the favor. I haven't even done anything to you. If anything, I'm the one who should be so cruel to you."

"Then be cruel. No one is telling you to be nice to me."

"God, Rosy, seriously, are you not used to people not being nice just for the sake of it?"

"Aren't you not supposed to be nice in the first place? Your nickname is Scourge which only means bad things. Unless you're just too much a wimp to actually live up to that name."

"You better watch it," I snapped, letting my voice get low as my growing anger began to increase. "You don't know me."

"And you don't know me. How about we stop trying to do that and get straight to whatever point we need to with this stupid class? I am sick and tired of arguing with you."

"Funny since you're the one who always starts it."

"Shut up," she said as she crossed her arms across her chest. She looked to Ms. Thomas' desk where she was watching all of us converse with our partners. Well, two pairs converse I should say. Rouge and Knuckles were arguing as usual, Dante was trying to make conversation with Brittany who was texting away on her cell phone, and here was me arguing with mine. Cream and Tails were talking quietly while Sonic seemed to be cracking jokes that made Amy laugh. I felt jealousy burn through me as I heard her soft laugh once more at whatever he was saying. And he says he doesn't like her. Fucker was lying right through his teeth. It was obvious but his overfriendliness that he had some feelings for her whether he realized it or not.

The thought of the overfriendliness brought my attention to my weird sense of caring for Rosy. But I couldn't possibly have hidden feelings for her could I? I mean, she was always so mean and not to mention difficult. I could never get anywhere with that girl. Amy was just so much easier to talk to. Plus, I could tell that she really did care about me – even if it was just as a friend. But I still had to try to see if there was something more besides the friendly care. I mean, I knew that I did sincerely like her. I liked holding her hand, hearing her soft voice, and staring at her beautiful, angelic face. Hopefully, she just felt the same way about me.

After a whole period of silence with Rosy, I practically chased Amy down the hall. Usually, she walked with her sister but since she stormed off, she was alone. That helped on my part since I wouldn't want to ask her out with Rosy staring unnecessary daggers at me. "Oh hey," Amy said, when she finally noticed me calling her through all the noise in the hallway. She smiled brightly at me as her slender arms enveloped me into a warm hug.

"Hey," I breathed, the sweet scent of her hair filling my noise. "I need to talk to you."

"About what," she asked, pulling away from me. Today she was wearing a fitted tee shirt that hugged her (at the moment) small curves and a pair of jeans with her hair pulled into a ponytail. Nonetheless she still looked absolutely beautiful to me.

"I know this may seem sudden and rushed and maybe a bit weird but I like you. I mean, I like, like you. And I was wondering if you wanted to go out with me Saturday night if you're not busy." Amy immediately flashed red, looking up at me with wide eyes.

"Like a date?" She sounded as if she were surprised. Then again, maybe she was. I had never actually made any huge advances besides holding her hand so she probably didn't even know I had feelings for her.

"Yea. A date." Amy blushed deeper but a small smile came upon her lips. She nodded, her shyness coming over her as she pulled her shoulders inward.

"Yea. I'd like that."

"Okay. I'll text you the details then."

"Or," she started, "you can walk me to my locker and we can talk about it further." I smirked down at her, slowly reaching out to intertwine my hand with her.

"I like your option so much better." She giggled as I spun her. Slowly, I let my arm creep around her waist, pulling her closer to me as we walked. During those few minutes, I felt myself enjoying the feel of her body so close to mine. I could tell that I was going to enjoy dating Amy – even if that meant that we would face a lot of consequences to get through it.

Okay so the chapter after next will be a huge time jump because I never really noticed how young they were being freshman and all. But also because after the next chapter, nothing major will really happen in the time between the rest of freshman year and sophomore year that can't be briefly explained so therefore I can just time jump it and things will still make sense. Just to give you guys a heads up on what's going on in the story direction.

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