Prepare for adorableness, poking fun at furry fetishism and transferring more animalistic traits and behaviors to much more human-shaped animal characters. And oh boy this is probably the cheesiest I can write... As I write it, I half cringe and half aww...
I mean if you really ship the pairing this chapter might be a cute, funny and sentimental roller coaster – you can thank my boyfriend Twisted Hero for half of that just because he was the one that not only got me into this fandom but also because he had a lot of good analyses for the pairing on it's own (because like Amy, the boyfriend is also a hopeless romantic despite him trying to be 'cool' like Sonic all the time).
...
And you can also blame my boyfriend for giving me all of the "sexy Sonic" cringe that I shall finally put to some productive use outside of our let's plays... One of these days I will have my revenge for all of the cringe you inflict upon me...
...
Enjoy the floof and my decent into madness...
Sonic dropped Amy off at her doorstep, the part of his brain that wanted to remain civil trying to tell the irrational side of his brain that just wanted to mate to calm down and not make him do anything unless she asked verbally or CLEARLY indicated that she wanted to do anything with her actions. The animal part of his brain knew what to look for: the female lies on her stomach, nose in the air, legs spread apart...
"Um... Sonic, you ok?" Amy asked, concerned as to why the blue blur was having these blue screen of death moments where he just sort of went too far into the depths of his own mind and frozen in place, just looking at the sky and looking but confused and disgusted by something. "Sonic?"
And then he shook his head, making himself cringe a bit and telling himself that he needed to keep it together. "Sorry Ames... Just... Got some things on my mind..."
She pouted, hands on her hips. "You mind telling me how you feel then instead of keeping everything bottled up?"
"Well, I'm just trying not to get ahead of myself... I don't wanna come off as a creep is all..." He squeaked a bit – not something he could control.
"Hehe~" Amy pressed her nose against his, causing him to blush. "You're so cute!"
"So... We going inside?"
Amy nodded. "Just be careful and watch where you step. It's kind of a mess..." And she opened the door to reveal a huge nest of grass covering her normal furniture and planks of wood hammered to the walls to cover the windows...
And the part of poor Sonic's brain that just wanted to mate kept egging him on...
"She is so riding our quill tonight..."
"Please... just shut up..."
"We're gonna turn into a blue blur cuz the things we're doing tonight isn't safe for prime time!"
"Shut... up..."
"Oh please... You're already aware of those images people draw of you on the internet..."
"T-THAT'S DIFFERENT AND OUT OF MY CONTROL! I can't help what my fans do..."
He slapped himself out of it, just going inside and laying on the grass trying to keep cool and forget about all of those weird images he found of himself on the internet while Amy was in the kitchen, making sandwiches no doubt.
It was so weird for him being here... The whole house smelled like Amy...
It was a nice smell... But he felt creepy for admitting it...
It was obvious she put a lot of effort into fixing the place even though to a non-hedgehog it'd look she she was having some sort of a going green themed mental breakdown and trying to incorporate ALL of the nature into her house in a very unstable way.
And after taking in the scenery some more he got more comfortable with things himself, not fearing being so out of character and no longer concerned about looking like a hero to anybody save for the pink hedgehog in the kitchen...
And at that moment he decided to check up on her, finding her wrapping up sandwiches in foil on a counter top full of mason jars, glass bottles, and scattered flower petals. He hugged her from behind, just trying to be cute and surprise her and unable to suppress the occasional squeak as he did so.
And she was surprisingly receptive, scratching his arms from an awkward angle. "Well aren't you forward?"
"I'm not being creepy, am I?"
"Nah. You're fine. But are you still up for the beach?"
"As long as you wanna go... You still wanna go right?"
"I was just wondering, what with you being here and all." She teasingly giggled, getting rid of the potential mate hugging her from behind fetching a basket from a cabinet under the sink.
"You know, if you need something I'm here to help..."
"I'm fine on my own, but thanks for offering anyway~."
She put a picnic basket on the counter top placing the sandwiches inside and then walking towards the fridge, only for Sonic to dash over and open it for her.
"Oh... Thanks for that." She seemed so dismissive as she reached for two mason jars on the bottom shelf.
"What else do you need? You need to get something off of a high shelf? Something from the store? Anything?" He asked, hoping to be of some use.
"It's fine. Besides, I wanna make the most of today while I have your undivided attention!" She put the two jars on the counter – a pink liquid with rose petals sitting at the bottom of each jar, the petals completely dull in color.
"What's that you have there?"
"Rosewater! I made it myself with pesticide-free rose petals. You can either boil them in water until they lose their color or let the petals sit in jars of vodka in the fridge til the liquid turns pink and the petals lose their color... Guess which method I used!"
"Are... you trying to get me drunk?" The thought of Amy trying to get him inebriated made him both blush and internally go 'aww' while also making him concerned...
"Hmm... What else should I bring?" She straight up ignored him again...
"You don't need anything else. Just sandwiches and drinks are fine... I'm not that high-maintenance..."
"It's fine really. I just want us to have a good time together."
The back of Sonic's brain started up again:
"Heh... Good time, I'll show you a good time. Who ordered the sexy?"
"Do you ever shut up?"
"This is a do or die situation we have on our hands!"
"What do you mean do or die?"
"Assert your dominance! Show the lady you're not messing around! We are NOT getting friendzoned! That's no good! If you like it then you gotta put a leash on it!"
"I'M NOT GONNA PUT A LEASH ON AMY!"
"Your right... Save the leash for when things get weird on purpose."
"YOU REALLY NEED TO SHUT UP!"
...
Sonic only managed to snap out of this inner conflict thanks to Amy tugging on his arm, dragging him to the beach... She would have no idea how much that simple action meant to him, helping him keep himself sane an preventing him from becoming too much of an animal.
Once they were there Amy set up a beach towel in the sand and took off her shoes and stockings, putting her purple stockings inside of her shoes and putting the pair of adorable sneakers on one corner of the towel to prevent it from flying all over the place on a gust of wind. She sat down, legs stretched with the basket on her lap.
"This is nice~."
"Yeah... This is fine..." No this wasn't fine, THIS WASN'T FINE AT ALL!
"So how are you feeling being around the ocean and all?" Amy asked, looking back at Sonic who was standing up completely petrified and staring out at the water.
"This is fine." It wasn't fine... He sat behind Amy, hugging her by the hips and trying not to vocalize how much he regretted the idea. It wasn't Amy that was the problem or the animalistic part of his brain constantly bombarding him with cheesy pick-up lines and perverted suggestions DeviantArt would find titillating. Really he agreed to this trip to make Amy happy and to shut that part of his brain up, but he recalled how much he hated the water once he was there and while the filthy part of his brain finally shut up, he got flashbacks of nearly drowning back when he was a hoglet himself.
But Amy was smart, noticing his hands and arms shaking, playing with her hair. "If you're scared, we can go back."
"No, No, I wanna be here... I mean, you wanted to come right?" He hugged her tighter out of anxiety. "I mean, I know I can't avoid the ocean all the time. We live on a tropical island now... I gotta get used to it..."
Amy played her her hair, blushing a bit and in a twisted sense enjoyed seeing Sonic so vulnerable. He didn't need to act so macho all the time to be loved, she loved him enough despite that. It was these corny sides of his personality she wanted to see more of. He could still be heroic, sure; but he'd already proved he was a hero to her continuities ago without the act – without even using words. She leaned back into him which caused him to squeak.
"You're not making this easy on me..." mumbled the blue hedgehog, face red.
"But if you are nervous, I'm here if you need me." the pink hedgehog's face was even pinker than normal but it fit her... Sonic envied the fact she was so open about her emotions and not always concerned about trying to look cool sometimes. "I know the beach isn't your thing but if you aren't more open about your feelings then you can't really get to the root of the prob-!" She shrieked, the sudden sensation of having her quills get bitten not being the most pleasant...
"Sorry! I... Just freaked out because I thought I saw something in the water..." Well... That was half true. "I mean if it's a problem I can-."
"Oh, you can keep going, just not so hard."
But rather than being upset by such a casual delivery every part of his brain just thought 'YES!' and he started nibbling on the ends of her quills enough not to seriously injure Amy, but enough to try establishing dominance should anyone else try to steal or disrespect his girl.
So there he was, finally biting Amy's quills on the beach while she casually ate a sandwich while looking out at the ocean. On the one hand he was finally getting what his instincts told him he wanted and on the other, the act was anxiety-reducing as well, making the water not seem to scary (from far away of course).
Then Amy held up a sandwich. "You don't want yours?"
Playfully he took a bite out of it, chewing, swallowing and hugging her tighter. "It's good." He said, followed by a lot of squeaking and the occasionally pig-like snort.
And Amy followed suit, squeaking and scratching his ears.
It was obvious they couldn't get enough of each other, what few other beach-goers and passers by distancing themselves as far away from the pair as possible should they get too wild and out of control and go from simple hugging, quill biting and loud squeaking to outright mating in the sand...
But lucky for what few onlookers there were, Amy was happy but not quite having it, dragging her distracted blue beau to the water.
"Amy come on, you know I can't swim..." And while he was somewhat nervous he also didn't really care as much with the pink member of his species holding his hand.
"It doesn't hurt to get your feet wet. Besides, you have me! Don't worry about being a hero so much when you have an adorable heroine next to you!" With that Amy got assaulted with a hug that nearly made her fall backward into the ocean .
"Seriously, why are you so casual and cute about everything?!" Sonic pressed his nose against hers.
"Heh... Boop..." She had the toothiest grin on her face. "See? This is the side of you I like the most."
"What do you mean? Right now all I can think about is going back to your place and-."
"I don't mean that. I don't just mean right now either..."
"Then what do you mean?"
"I MEAN, I already love you without you acting all cool..."
And this time she was hugged so hard that they both fell into knee-deep water followed by more giggling and loud squeaking as they splashed around, officially making whatever people were left on the beach flee the scene immediately just because of the noise.
And after about 15 minutes of undisturbed beach shenanigans Amy dragged Sonic back to their spot on the beach with her legs sore and Sonic suddenly turning into a small hoglet who didn't want to go home – out of character but kind of cute now that he could associate knee-deep ocean water with something more romantic than the fear of drowning.
"You were right, beaches ARE cool! Ocean's not to bad either once you get past the fact it's all water..." Sonic sat up, still full of energy and wanting to go back in – the stupid part of his brain daring him to try teaching himself how to swim in hopes it would impress the pink hedgehog... But said pink hedgehog was lying down, in bliss but tired...
Amy just looked up at him, somewhat impressed by the fact he didn't complain once he was actually in the water even once. "You're fearing water less... That's good. You just need to associate it with something nice, something that makes you less afraid."
"I guess learning how to swim would make me look more heroic, but me and water have a complicated relationship..."
Boy did Amy know that. "It's not just about heroics Sonic. It's about facing your fears for your sake."
"Well..." Sonic hesitated. "Wouldn't wanna be a coward if the hoglets get into trouble in water."
"Aww... You were worried about the urchins?"
"A bit."
"That's sweet of you."
"You think we can do this again?"
"You mean you want me to teach you how to swim?"
"I mean in general. When do we ever hang out alone together?"
"Well we are battling Eggman most of the time."
"Well Eggman hasn't been in the picture for a while." Putting his arm around his girl, he squeaked once. "So either he's gone for good or someone who's not me managed to beat him or changed his mind about wanting to turn this island into some amusement park."
"Why DOES he want to build an amusement park anyway? He has skills outside of being evil." And Amy counted them on her fingers "robotics, building, cooking, gaming, teaching, staff management, and sure he could use some hospitality training if he ever decided to open an actual hotel but he doesn't really have a reason to be here and try to build an amusement park all the time."
"Yeah, I think it's just me he hates..." And then he scooted away, scratching his ears. "But thinking about it that way, that just makes things between us more complicated. I mean if Eggman comes back then you're going to be an even bigger target than normal. And then you have to worry about the hoglets... What if everyone gets hurt because of me?"
Despite his instincts nagging at him to show her 'why he was the fastest thing alive', the more he thought about settling down and making it official, the scarier it got...
Amy started putting her shoes and stockings back on. "I can handle myself. I hammer well, I'm tough. Besides, we do this all the time. We might be a little off our game because no one's shown up to ruin things for a while but we can manage."
"Amy you don't get it. Sure some of those schemes are stupid but if I hadn't gotten out of those schemes I might not even be here..."
But the pink hedgehog just hugged her man. "You'll be fine... You believe in yourself and your ability to save people, and I'll believe in you... You just need to trust that other people can help you..."
Chapter 7 end
I'll start with the animal trivia and then go into analysis of the pairing and you can credit myself, the boyfriend and Digi Valentine for these findings. Once I get in a more stable place in life, I plan on doing these sorts of fictional analyses myself – not strictly for Sonic stuff, just fiction I like in general. Sonic stuff will definitely be on my list though if only because that darn blue hedgehog just seems to be stalking me throughout life and because I have exposure to it because BOYFRIEND!
Animal trivia for chapter 7:
This is all hedgehog trivia!
You know that pose described in the first paragraph? "the female lies on her stomach, nose in the air, legs spread apart..." - that's a position a female hedgehog has to take so mating isn't so painful... Hedgehogs can't take off their spines, so the female hedgie takes this position because it would be the least painful while the male would mount her and bite her quills in order to not fall off.
The quill biting doesn't just happen strictly for reproduction either, it's also to show dominance. A male hedgehog might bite a female hedgehog even if they're not mating in order to show dominance over her. I'd also assume that if other male hedgehogs were in the picture, it'd be a visual cue to say "this is mah woman, don't bite her quills"
(Though in the Sonic art style, how would you draw Sonic biting Amy's quills/hair without the heads just looking awkward? If you think you can draw that convincingly I would be eager to see your work – maybe even make it the cover for this fic...)
The squeaking in this chapter also has a place. Male hedgehogs will squeak to sound like a hoglet so that a female will start ovulating and want to have a litter of their own... This is one of those behaviors that's cute in animals, it can even be cute in anthro versions of animals like Sonic and friends but that'd be very weird if human males started making baby noises in order to get a woman to ovulate...
Now some analysis stuff regarding the pairing of SonAmy itself!
The benefit of having a partner who's almost as analytical as you are has it's benefits. So his background is that he grew up on Sonic games, the shows, the cringe, etc. One of his favorite pairings is SonAmy. His analysis of the pairing was that while it is KIND OF canon (the constant ship teasing in Boom, the heavily implied love confession in Sonic X, behavior in the games), what are other reasons superheroes don't have permanent partners? It's because often their loved ones will become targets of the villain. Just look at any one Jessica Jones ever works with: Killgrave always ends up effecting them in order to get to Jessica, not stopping at anyone or anything to get her back. Granted Killgrave is an extreme example and Eggman is more of a cartoon villain with honestly no real threat compared to previous iterations of the character, but Killgrave is a great example none the less. Good villains have motivations – strong enough motivations will make everything else lose it's meaning in comparison to their ultimate goal.
So the boyfriend's theory as to why SonAmy would never be made official (we're not counting the comics), would be because Sonic cares about Amy too much and wouldn't want her to be a target of Eggman. My counter argument: Amy's a capable character, she's tough, she's got balanced stats and she has plenty of motivation. Just look at her in Sonic X, past all of her being in love with Sonic she's a total badass. Sonic's just kind of being a dope – a dope with good intentions since aside from Boom most of his iterations are generally nice guys – but still kind of a dope...
That also brings me to another point I'm borrowing from Digi Valentine who's inspired me to do these sorts of analyses thanks to his YouTube series "Who Dat?". In his analysis of Amy Rose he points out that Sonic is the type of hero character who believes strongly in himself and that's what fuels his heroism and Amy's the type of character who believes in YOU. She's bound to get into trouble herself but she's capable enough to find a way out of it and she's well rounded socially as well as physically – often helping characters go through arcs (like Gamma in Sonic Adventure 1 and Silver in Sonic 06)
Special Thanks:
Another special thanks to NeckBreak for contributing even more trivia to the reviews section! Also check out their YouTube channel called "Hedgehog Zone"... I've fallen down the youtube hedgehog rabbit hole (hedge hole?) and I can't get out... I'd love one but they're illegal to own in my state.
And for the millionth time this chapter alone, special thanks to the boyfriend who provided us with the lines for Sonic's instincts.
Next chapter I really wanna snuggle a Shadow plush... but I don't own one...