Recursion Error
Episode 42- The actual party
Sorun had seldom been to any parties during the duration of his life, both here on Mobius and back on Earth. He'd been to a birthday party once. David's, and he'd been ten at the time. He didn't have any particularly good or bad memories from the experience, either. It'd just been a unique day for him that day.
With that in mind, he didn't really know what to expect coming into this party they were hosting in the HQ. Being in the middle of it, he couldn't help but recall back to the day prior when Nicole had referred to it as a "gathering". Because sitting down on the couch and seeing it with his own eyes, for Sorun, it was less a party and more of just that: a gathering. It was much too calm to be called a party. Cramped- the entirety of the Freedom Fighters and Chaotix, along with Rouge, were there. But the overall atmosphere was calm.
Sorun liked it. The peacefulness of it. No running around doing crazy things, no fighting robots or anything of the sort like that, no drama, nothing exciting. Just him and everybody else chilling out together. It was nice.
Of course Sonic ruined the moment by practically crashing right into the couch right next to Sorun, causing a rumble strong enough that the red drink inside of Sorun's cup almost spilled out.
"Yo! Sorun!" Why Sonic had chosen to raise his voice so much was beyond Sorun's reasoning. It wasn't like the idle chatter of everybody in the background was so loud that they needed to speak above normal volume. "What're you doin' all over here on your lonesome, huh?"
"I can't enjoy the moment on my own?" Sorun asked, raising an eyebrow in Sonic's direction as he took a drink from his cup.
Sonic vehemently shook his head, causing Sorun to unconsciously squeeze his cup just the slightest amount. "Nuh-uh! Not while I'm around!"
"Oh, leave him alone, Sonic," a chastising voice said from besides the two. Both teens looked over to the left side, where they saw Sally sit down on the free left spot next to Sorun on the couch. "He's just trying to enjoy the party," the princess continued.
"Yeah, but he's not even acting like he's a part of it!" Sonic argued, gesturing his arm past Sorun and towards Sally, the former sinking his back into the couch as he continued sipping at his punch. "I'm glad he came here and everything, but he's just sitting around! Look, he didn't even dress for it!"
At that, Sorun rose both his eyebrows and looked down at himself. He wore the exact same blue coat and black undershirt he always wore, and the same pants and boots. And when he looked around, nobody else was wearing anything out of the ordinary. In fact everybody, including Sonic, was wearing the same thing they always wore.
"... I always wear this," Sorun said, looking back to Sonic. "If anything you're the one that didn't dress up."
For some reason that statement made Sonic confused. "Huh? How is this not dressin' up?" he asked, gesturing at his body and the fact all he had on were his red sneakers and white gloves. "This is casual wear, and this party's a casual party. But YOU-" he said, pointing to Sorun, "- always have to dress all fancy. Since day one you've been covered head to toe in clothes and you never let loose in front of anybody!"
"..." It took Sorun a bit to even wrap his head around what he just heard before he could begin formulating a response. "Is this a culture thing I'm missing?"
He heard a sigh from besides him, causing Sorun to turn to Sally. "No, Sorun, Sonic just personally doesn't like clothes because he thinks they're too 'stuffy' and make people uptight," she explained.
Sonic scoffed from besides Sorun. "'Course they do, you guys seen Antoine?" He turned his eyes to Sally. "And think about it, Sal. Think about it. Sorun's the most sour guy in all of Knothole. And who's one of the only people in Knothole that wears pants?" He nodded his head towards Sorun, causing the Earthling to roll his eyes. "Is it really a coincidence?"
Hearing enough of this ridiculousness, Sorun palmed Sonic's face and pushed him back to his side of the couch. The blue hedgehog sputtered and tried to resist, but eventually relented and made a pout at Sorun when he was successfully pushed back. Sorun, however, had paused and was looking between his own hand and Sonic's eyes.
"... You know I never really noticed, but your eyes are huge, Sonic," Sorun said, staring at his own hand in wonder. He couldn't even figure out which was bigger- his own hand or one of Sonic's eyes. Or... was it both? "Actually, that's something I wanna ask you," Sorun said, turning to meet Sonic fully. "Dude, I gotta ask. How many eyes do you have?"
"Huh?" He'd been so caught off guard by the question that Sonic's mouth had dropped open in confusion. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"I mean that you have this weird thing going on where, like, the middle part of your face isn't... like there's nothing separating your eyes, they're just kind of connected there," Sorun said. "Amy and Shadow and your family have the same thing going on and nobody else does so I assume it's a hedgehog-only thing, but, like, is it two eyes but they're connected, or just, uh... one really weird eye...?"
Every single word said by Sorun only seemed to make Sonic grow more and more confused. By the end he was looking at the pale teen like he was an alien, completely dumbstruck and seemingly at a loss for words. Sorun was almost afraid he'd said something offensive.
And then he burst out laughing and clapped Sorun on the shoulder, now making the Earthling the confused one.
"Ah-ha-ha-ha! Oh, man... how many eyes do I have? Priceless," Sonic gasped out, wiping away an invisible tear from his laughter. "Good joke, Sorun, but come on, it's obvious how many eyes I have."
It really wasn't. "Okay, but can I get a number or something 'cause-"
Sonic burst out in another fit of laughter. "Ah, come on, Sorun, you can't play the same joke twice. It gets old too fast." He shook his head and leaned back into the couch, obliviously ignoring the gawking human next to him. "Is there any other 'weird things' you've noticed about me or somebody else?" he asked, making finger quotes.
After thinking for a second, Sorun decided to answer in earnest. "Well, there's Tails. I'm pretty sure his fur is yellow, but sometimes I'll see him in really weird lighting and he'll look almost orange."
Sonic shrugged. "He's just colored like that."
"The stripes along Shadow's eyes makes it look like he's wearing red eyeliner."
Again, Sonic laughed. "Ha! I'm gonna use that the next time I see him." He rolled his head towards Sorun. "Alright, well let me ask you something: how come you humans and Overlanders always wear so much clothing?" he asked him. "I mean, seriously, every single time I've been to Station Square all the humans I saw were completely decked out in clothes. Everyone! You people have some weird obsession with clothes, I swear."
Sorun creased his brows in mild offense. "We don't have an obsession. Honey has as obsession with clothes," Sorun objected. "We just, well..." He glanced towards Sonic's fur-covered crotch, turned around and briefly glanced at Sally's body, and then looked back at Sonic. "We don't really have anything to... y'know..." He became too flustered with what he was saying, and with a small grunt he sunk back against the couch. "Man, whatever, at least I don't walk around naked like all you guys."
To his immense surprise, not only did Sonic looked surprised at what Sorun said, but also Sally. "Huh? Naked?" the princess echoed. "What do you mean naked? Nobody here is naked."
He almost believed he'd misheard her. Indeed, Sorun wished that he had been mistaken in what he heard, but in his heart of hearts he knew he wasn't mistaken. In an almost languid manner, he rolled his head over to Sally, who was giving him a questioning look. Sorun, eyes half-lidded from the absolute absurdity of it all, glanced at Sally's chest exposed from her opened vest, down to her lower body that only had a pair of boots on the feet, and then, slowly, he looked back up at Sally's face.
"... Seriously, Sally?"
All the chipmunk did in response was shake her head, not understanding Sorun's point. "Sorun, I have a vest and boots on. Sonic has gloves and his sneakers. That's the complete opposite of being naked."
"Okay, you know what, I'm not dealing with this." Taking one last gulp of his punch, Sorun crushed the now-empty cup and stood up from the couch. "I'll go mingle about if it means getting out of this cursed conversation."
He walked off towards the nearest crowd of people, leaving behind Sonic and Sally on the couch. They both stared after him in confusion, gave each other questioning looks, and then finally shrugged the whole experience off before they began chatting amongst themselves.
"I'm not really much of a dart guy, Ray."
In Sorun's hand was a regular throwing dart, which he was rolling around back and forth in his palm. And in front of Sorun, pinned to the HQ's wall, was a picture of Eggman. A picture that, to his slight displeasure, he realized was a printout of one of the innumerable selfies he and Nicole had acquired during that one disastrous outing of theirs. He didn't know whether to be happy they were getting use out of those or upset that he had to be reminded of that day.
He looked to the side of him. Two Mobians, Ray and Mighty, were there, with the former glancing back and forth between a dart of his own and the poster set in front of him while Mighty was glancing at him with a smirk.
"Ah, come on. Don't tell me you're afraid of losing to Ray in a little game of darts here," Mighty said, that ever-present smirk still on his face.
"I'm not afraid. I know I'm gonna lose. I've never tossed a dart in my entire life," Sorun said.
The smirk Mighty wore dropped off. "Huh? But you toss those swords of yours around all the time!"
"Yeah, that's way different than darts, man."
"How would you even know that if you've never tried it?"
Sorun opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came out when he realized Mighty was right. He had doubts mentally commanding magically-conjured swords wasn't all that different than actually physically throwing a dart, but he supposed he wouldn't know unless he tried.
"Aw, d-don't be like that, Sorun. It's easy." Ray held up the dart he held in his hand and held it up to his eye, the other one closed. "You just line it up and throw, like this!"
The golden squirrel tossed the dart. It briefly whistled through the air, and hit the picture of Eggman right between the eyes.
"Just like that, huh?" Nodding to himself, Sorun adopted a similar stance Ray had made and held the dart up to his eye while squinting. "Line it up, and then..."
He threw the dart.
It hadn't even hit the poster. It'd just bounced off the wall.
Ray and Mighty both winced, while Sorun just slumped his shoulders. They all jumped upwards when an object whizzed past them and indented itself into Eggman's forehead, right above the dart Ray had thrown previously. When Sorun tilted his head forwards to look closer, he realized the thrown object had been a shuriken.
"You require more practice, Sorun." A purple body materialized on the opposite side of Sorun. Crossing his arms, Espio gave Sorun a sideways look. "Your accuracy is all over the place with that footwork."
"Tch." Clacking his teeth together, Sorun willed a Summoned Sword to appear at his side. "I'll show you accuracy..." he muttered out, the point of the floating sword making small adjustments as it aimed at the poster. With a single mental command, the sword was sent flying towards the poster.
Of course, the sword wad dead-on with hitting its mark. Due to the sheer size of the blade, though, the entire poster had been impaled and cut completely in half from the sword. Sorun cast another glance towards Espio who, to his credit, was staring towards the cut poster with an unfazed expression.
"Mine's bigger," was all that Sorun said to him.
Espio's initial response was to scoff. "Size isn't everything, but I'll concede to the fact that you can at least aim well." He turned his head towards Sorun and gave him a smile. "I heard what you did for Charmy. You have my thanks."
Sorun blinked in the direction of the chameleon, and then looked away. "It wasn't anything special, I just- egh!"
A sudden weight clamping around his neck and weighing his back down cut Sorun off from his words. He gasped out in panic and scrambled his hands up towards his neck, but he'd paused halfway when he recognized the giggling voice behind him.
"Sorun, come on! You gotta try the cake me and Antoine made!" It was Charmy's voice, and based on the force Sorun was feeling, the bee was trying to drag him away by flying backwards while holding onto him.
He became less panicked, though he still felt embarrassment burn through him as Sorun tried to unbind the arms around his neck. "Charmy, let go of me," he demanded, feeling his face burn when he saw the three Mobians he'd just been playing darts with grinning at the display.
"Mh-mh, you have to hurry!" To Sorun's shock Charmy was actually becoming successful in dragging him backwards. "Vector's trying to eat it all!"
"I'm gonna go, just get your hands off me!"
It was with an unsure look that Sorun glanced at the small machine that had been placed on the long table where the punch and paper cups were located. If he didn't know any better he would have thought it was some strange sort of coffee maker with a strange metal tube sticking out of the top at an odd angle. But he knew very well what it was, and he couldn't help but be somewhat skeptical over it.
"Are you sure this is gonna work?" Sorun asked the purple walrus working on an exposed panel on the small machine. "I mean, I like carbonated drinks as much as the next guy, probably more so, but... carbonated punch? I dunno, man, sounds like a pretty forbidden combo."
"The forbidden combo? Really?" Rotor turned his head away from the machine to give Sorun a flat look. "Yes, Sorun, I'm sure it's gonna work. Come on, can you even blame me? No insult to Saffron or her punch, but I wanted to liven the party up and I just happened to have this lying around in the lab."
"And you had a carbonation machine why?"
"I had a spark of inspiration one night and a lot of free time."
Sorun rolled his eyes at that, but otherwise said nothing. Admittedly the prospect of carbonated punch was a bit enticing to him. It'd been a while since he had any of that cola stuff they stocked in the fridge. And the more he thought on it the more he realized he could really go for some carbonated punch, especially as he'd never had any before.
"How much longer is this gonna take?" Sorun asked, a bit impatiently.
Rotor scrunched up his face and flipped a small switch. "I gotta get the pressure here right or something catastrophic could happen."
"Catastrophic. Right." Sorun glanced off to the side. "Pretty sure something catastrophic's already happenin'..."
A short distance away from them he saw Knuckles. That wasn't the strange part. The strange part was that he had Julie-Su was tugging at one arm while Rouge was tucking on the other. Even stranger was that Knuckles had an incredibly confused and flustered look on his face.
"He's dancing with me, you bat," Julie-Su growled out, tugging Knuckles towards her while shooting Rouge a dirty look.
Rough pulled Knuckles towards her. "Now way! You've been hogging him the entire night so far! Let him dance with someone else!"
Sorun was pretty sure he saw nervous sweat beading down Knuckles' face. "H-hey, guys, can we talk this out...?"
Humming at the sight of the struggling trio, Sorun turned back to Rotor and his carbonation machine. He found himself raising an eyebrow when the silver tube connected to the top of the machine began to violently wiggle around, with puffs of concentrated carbon gas seeping out from the bottom. He looked to the right at Rotor, who had backed up a couple of steps away from the sputtering machine.
"Er, Rotor?" Sorun called out. "What's going on with the thing?"
He heard Rotor gulp. "Something catastrophic."
"Oh, goody."
Before any more words could be said the silver tube was blasted off the top of the machine. Like a small rocket it flew around the room, occasionally hitting a surface and bouncing off only to then fly away at a completely different angle. Both Rotor and Sorun watched the tube with their eyes as it bounced around the room, their irises darting left and right as they tracked the small missile flying around. It ended when the small tube impacted straight onto Knuckles' forehead, causing both to wince and hiss as the echidna tilted backwards and landed on the floor.
The two girls that had been at his side stared down at the fallen echidna with looks of shock on their faces. Their expressions quickly turned into ones of pure anger as they rose their heads towards the table, where both Rotor and Sorun were standing at.
"Hey!" Rouge shouted, both her and Julie-Su storming over to their location. "Just what do you think you're doing!?"
Sorun heard another gulp from Rotor. He glanced at him and, thinking fast, grabbed the cup of punch he'd brought over and turned away. "All yours, buddy," Sorun remarked, sending Rotor a sympathetic look before walking off. All he managed to catch from the walrus was a hurt look of betrayal before the two other Mobians were upon him.
"I'll pour one out for you, big guy," Sorun thought to himself, drinking the cup empty to the sound of heavy arguing behind him.
"Who the hell do these goddamned degenerate savages think they are son of a bitch goddamn it what the f-"
"Uh, Sorun? What are you doing?"
The speed at which Sorun whipped his neck around at the voice behind him had been fast enough that he'd heard bones in his neck pop. For all he knew he had actually broken vertebrae and just didn't feel it, but he didn't find himself caring all that much. What he did care about was why Amy was interrupting him during the middle of a very important task.
Amy herself stood just behind Sorun, looking with one eye squinting at Sorun, and then at the pair of normal arms and pair of blue spectral arms reaching into a sink full of suds-filled water and dishes. Sorun himself had a strained, wide-eyed look on his face, which only seemed to make the pink hedgehog even more uncomfortable.
"Well someone has to clean all the plates you guys were eating the cake and the rest of the food Antoine and Bunnie brought over off of. Why Sally didn't just bring paper plates like the cups is beyond me..." he grumbled out, blue arms furiously scrubbing at the plates in a blur. "Makes me mad, seeing all that stuff just left out."
This statement only caused greater confusion in Amy. "Couldn't you just wait until after the party? We could have all done it together."
"No, Amy, you don't understand, the mess is here now and I need to deal with it now. It's gonna bug me all night if I don't make it disappear." Why couldn't she see it? He couldn't just leave it there for him to see whenever he just happened to glance in the direction of the kitchen sink. He couldn't do that. He refused to. It needed to go away.
He really hated dirty dishes.
"Ugh, Sorun, come on, you can't do this in the middle of the party." Shaking her head, Amy stepped forwards and reached out to Sorun's hands, which were still in the sink. "Come on, just leave all this stuff for tomorrow morning when we clean- aiiee!"
She'd only dipped her gloved-covered fingers in the water for half a second before she made a small shriek and tore her hand away from the sink, startling Sorun. The pink Mobian shook the hand off, blowing on it before worryingly looking at the sink. "Sorun, why do you have the water on so hot!?"
"Hot?" Blinking in confusion, Sorun removed his hands from the sink's water. He'd been so focused on cleaning dishes that he only now noticed that his hands were completely beet-red, causing him to grimace a bit in realization. "Oh. Whoops," he mumbled out. "Musta put the water on too hot without feeling it. I got so caught up in cleaning this stuff I didn't even realize... man..."
"Eh-heh, I, uh... like it hot," Sorun lied, chuckling nervously as he shook the moisture off from his hands. The Bringer Claws also disappeared, the dishes they were holding clattering into the sink's water as he fully turned towards Amy. "You know what, maybe you're right. I'll just let it sit overnight and we can deal with it later."
Amy smiled in agreement and nodded at him. "That's more like it. Now come on!"
Without even waiting for his consent Amy had reached forwards and grabbed at one of Sorun's now-red wrists. The Earthling sputtered out in slight protest, but in the end did nothing as he was dragged outside of the kitchen and into the main room of the HQ. It was only once they were outside of the kitchen proper that Sorun had gently wrenched his wrist free of Amy's grasp.
Amy, however, didn't seem to notice her sudden loss of Sorun's hand in the slightest. In fact she seemed more focused on something across the room. Sorun had quirked an eye at the sight, but when he followed her line of sight he found himself scoffing when he understood what it was the pink Mobian was focusing on.
On the other side of the room was the long table with all the paper cups set up. Over there was Sonic and Tails, who were both stacking empty cups up on a high pyramid that almost reached the ceiling. Sorun looked back towards Amy, not at all being surprised to see how she currently looked. Eyes half-lidded and her entire face set in a lovesick expression as she stared over at the blue hedgehog. Sorun didn't really know how to feel seeing that look, especially after having heard Sonic's feelings over the Amy. Pitying, he supposed, as Sonic had made it very clear to Sorun that he had no intention of reciprocating Amy's feelings.
"Oh, Sorun. This party has been wonderful, but Sonic's been hanging around with everybody around him. He hasn't set any time aside for me yet." Amy hadn't even turned towards Sorun as she spoke. Her light green eyes were perpetually locked onto Sonic. "Haven't you ever cared for somebody enough that your heart just aches not being around them?"
Instead of answering, Sorun looked off to the side towards the other end of the room. His eyes were drawn towards a pair standing near the back: Sally and Nicole. They seemed to be in deep conversation about something, with Sally saying something that caused Nicole to hold her hand to her mouth and make a small laugh. Sorun sighed at the sight, and then proceeded to place his hands in his pockets.
"Can't say I have, Amy," he mumbled out before walking away. He wasn't even sure she noticed him leaving with all her attention focused on Sonic.
"Why do you want something like that?"
Sorun shrugged. "I dunno, I just... figured the sooner I get this over with and get the rest of them, the better, you know? Less chance of something bad happening." He took a drink of the punch he held in his hand, eyes continually affixed to the yellow fox standing in front of him. Tails, for his part, looked a bit hesitant, but at the same time he had a look on his face that suggested he was mulling Sorun's request over.
Admittedly, a small part of Sorun did feel a bit bad asking something so big from Tails, especially now of all times during a social gathering, but he wanted to get a jump on this as soon as possible after the party. It's what he'd endeavored to do, after all, but if Tails couldn't fulfill his request, then he had nothing to work off of. Not ideal, hence him asking for the fox's help right at this moment. His options were rather limited otherwise.
"Listen, I know this is a bit sudden, and I apologize for that, Tails, but I wouldn't be asking if I didn't really need it," Sorun continued. "I just need this one thing, alright? And besides, the sooner we get them the less risk there is of Eggman getting one or both of them and hurting somebody with 'em."
"Well... I guess you make a good point when you say it like that," Tails agreed. He made a small hum as he closed his eyes to think the request over, and then opened them while nodding up at Sorun. "Alright. I'll talk it over with Rotor and see what we can do. I think we have some spare Chaos energy sensors lying around, so if we cannibalize some of the parts I could more than likely slap something together for you."
The news was enough to make it feel like a weight was lifted off from Sorun's shoulders, making him breath out from the ephemeral sensation. "Thanks, Tails. It means a lot to me."
Anything further that was to be said between the two was interrupted when the loud sound of cheering drew both their attentions. A large crowd had formed near then end of the room, with everybody clapping at something. Upon observing further, Sorun realized just what it was they were clapping at- Antoine and Bunnie were both in front of the crowd, facing towards it and holding hands while both wore wide, happy smiles. Sorun was left wondering what it was that was happening until a voice had answered it for him.
"You two missed it!" Sorun and Tails turned their heads to the side, seeing Saffron fly over and stop right next to them. She had on a happy smile that was almost as wide as the couple's smile at the other side of the room. "Antoine and Bunnie are finally getting married!"
The reactions between Sorun and Tails varied greatly. Sorun had just merely widened his eyes in surprise, which in itself was a tame reaction compared to Tails'. The fox Mobian had grown so excited at the news that both of his tails began to excitedly wag through the air, while his ears had stood straight up and a wide, happy smile had broke out across his whole face.
"Really!? They're not just engaged anymore!? They're making it official!?" The mere prospect of it seemed to make Tails so excited that he was practically shaking.
Saffron gave him an enthusiastic nod. Her body was shaking from excitement. "Mm-hm! They just announced their plan for the wedding! Come on!"
Sorun silently watched as Saffron and Tails made their way to the crowd where everybody else was. From where he was Sorun couldn't even make out any words from all the elated chatter buzzing in from the large gathering, but he gathered the mood was exceptionally positive as he could have sworn he felt all the happiness wafting off from them all. He saw that Bunnie was having a very animated talk with Sally, both of them looking like they were bouncing up and down off the floor they were so energetic, while Antoine was being swarmed. It was with some amusement Sorun saw the wide and incredibly nervous smile Antoine held, with Vector having slinked behind him and wrapped an arm around his shoulder while Sonic was grinning widely at him while giving him two thumbs-ups.
"So they finally decided to tie it together, huh? I guess now'd be the time with how quiet everything is," Sorun thought to himself. He looked down into the cup he held and swirled around the contents. "Good for them. It's about time they finally got married."
He truly was happy for them. To the point that he felt himself smiling on the inside, even if on the outside he kept up a blank expression. It was enough that he wanted to walk over and join everybody else in congratulating the couple on their decision to finally get married. In fact he wanted to be the one in Vector's position, an arm wrapped around the coyote's shoulders as he teased him for the fact that Antoine was no doubt a nervous wreck on the inside right about now, especially as it looked like he was about to pass out from everybody crowding around him right now.
But he didn't. Sorun just kept his distance away from them as he continued to think.
"Well, I guess that's just more reason to go through with this so soon," he continued to think as he drunk from his cup. "Congratulations, Antoine, Bunnie. You both deserve it. I'll try to make it so you both get to live happy lives along with everybody else."
Sorun ran on what he and his circle of gamer friends back on Earth liked to call 'Gamer Time'.
Gamer Time was a simple concept. Sorun played video games, and his room had been set up in a way that absolutely no sunlight ever bled into his room. That meant that, unless he bothered to look at a clock, he never knew what time of day it was on the outside. This combined with long gaming sessions with his online friends meant that his gaming sessions often carried in through the night, oftentimes all the way to morning of the next day. His internal clock shifted over time due to this behavior, eventually getting to the point where he became a nocturnal creature who thrived at night and slept during the day.
Now, of course, this wasn't behavior he could afford to keep up all the time. He'd had to balance a school life during the day, after all, so this kind of schedule was usually regulated to weekends, days off, holidays and vacations. That still left a lot of time for Sorun to shift from living on normal time to living on Gamer Time, though, to the point that his body adjusted to doing both. So what did this mean in essence?
Basically if he wanted to he could stay up all night while at the same time sleep through a whole day and vice versa.
It wasn't exactly a perfect system; it sometimes lead to him being unusually tired at unreasonable hours during the day, and admittedly living somewhat normal hours on Mobius for months on end now had been slowly shifting his internal clock from working on both normal time and Gamer Time to just strictly normal time, but vestiges of his time spent living in Gamer Time was still evident on him, such as him sleeping an inordinately long time through the mornings usually. He remembered trying to explain this concept to Sonic once, though the hedgehog had been completely lost at Sorun's explanations and chalked him sleeping in all the time being a 'weird human thing'.
Well, he hadn't exactly been wrong, per se, but Sorun had still felt insulted enough to not pursue the matter any further and let Sonic think what he wanted.
On the flipside, he still had enough experience living in Gamer Time that he could stay up through the night if he wanted, even if his experience living in Gamer Time had atrophied some. That didn't even account for the fact his failing body sapped more and more of his energy the longer he went on, though tonight he found himself able to go for a fair bit. He partially blamed the punch, because it was so sweet that he doubted it was just honey that Saffron had put into this stuff.
He was pretty sure soda had less sugar than the amount of stuff she'd put in this punch.
It didn't seem to effect the other Freedom Fighters, though. He would have thought that seasoned guerilla fighters like them used to missions that stretched on through the night would have been able to keep themselves awake longer, and that wasn't even considering the fact they were all teenagers like him. But after Antoine and Bunnie had announced their wedding plans, the party had gone a bit... hectic. And all that excitement seemed to have drained everybody of energy, because it was hours later and now Sorun was here, sitting on the HQ's couch all by his lonesome. All around him were the passed-out forms of everybody that had attended the party, all sleeping soundly in various awkward positions on the floor and in some chairs. And a table in Knuckles' case.
A funny enough sight for Sorun, who, left all alone now, only had his own thoughts to occupy himself. He was happy that everybody had a good time and even happier for the soon-to-be bride and groom, really, he was, but thinking of the young couple in love also got Sorun thinking about himself and these concepts. Love, his pending death, his relationships with everybody, his future plans. Dire stuff, really.
"~Dame da ne, dame yo, dame da no yo...~" Sorun downed the rest of his drink in the final cup of punch that he held. Once the paper cup was empty, he tossed it away, watching with some amusement as the paper cup bounced off of the sleeping Sonic's head. The hedgehog quietly mumbled something in his sleep, and then rolled over on the floor so he was facing the other way.
"Man, I can't believe everybody passed out like this." Sorun spoke when he saw movement in his peripheral vision. He turned towards the source already knowing it was Nicole. "I guess they all got a little too excited with the wedding announcement, huh?"
Nicole glanced to the side at some of the sleeping Mobians around them, an amused smile on her face. "It would appear so." She looked back at Sorun. "I am surprised you are not sleeping along with them."
"Well, you know... one of those nights," Sorun said. "Not surprised you're still up since you don't get tired like us."
"That's... not entirely accurate," Nicole corrected, causing Sorun to tilt his head in interest. "I can feel the power drain from my body used to maintain this form. I found exhaustion to be a rather unpleasant experience, and even so the amount of time I was able to project my body on my own power alone made it impractical. Thankfully the use of Power Rings negated this sensation." Her smile grew a bit wider. "And I would have you know that I do, in fact, possess a sleep mode," she informed him.
"Oh. Huh." He hadn't actually known that. It made enough sense in a roundabout way- draining energy from an artificial being was the closest equivalent Sorun could think of to somebody getting tired, and according to Nicole's words for her it was practically the exact same sensation. He found it interesting. He found the idea of her having a sleep mode even more interesting. "Do you actually use that sleep mode of yours?"
"Of course. More often than not I utilize it whenever my handheld body needs to be shut down for recharging purposes," Nicole explained. "Beyond that, remaining active for extended periods of time can often lead to junk data and other bits of non-important data to accrue in my memory and processors. Too much of this buildup can lead to my mental faculties being slowed down." She grew a slightly uncomfortable look on her face. "I suppose the closest comparison would be an organic body suffering from sleep deprivation. It's not a sensation I find myself enjoying. I utilize my sleep mode to clear out this useless data so that I can remain running at peak capacity."
"So it's... like rebooting a computer to clear out the RAM?"
Nicole nodded, seemingly pleased at Sorun's understanding. "Yes, that's precisely it. Though, due to the sophisticated nature of my unique construction, it takes more than a simple reboot to restore me to full operational capacity. I usually require hours of sleep, particularly after long nights spent in the lab on my projects."
Sorun tilted his head back a bit, blinking once at Nicole. "Maybe you shouldn't be doing that so much, then," he said. "It's not healthy for people to pull consecutive all-nighters like that, you know."
She'd actually made a single, small giggle upon hearing that. "I thank you for the concern, Sorun, but I believe I am doing well. That project of mine has neared completion anyways."
He wanted to argue the point, but decided not to and just sat back on the couch with a sigh. If she said she was doing fine and knew what she was doing, then he'd believe her. It wasn't like he'd know any better anyways, especially considering he wasn't an AI like her. And with how he'd been treating his body with these Chaos Emeralds, it wasn't like he had a place to talk.
When he looked back up at Nicole, he paused. She was looking at him with a strange, almost contemplative look in her eyes. Her hands were at her sides, occasionally reaching up a few inches before falling back to her side, like she was unsure of something or couldn't make up her mind. Sorun watched the display in confusion, getting ready to ask what it was she was doing before Nicole evidently had made up her mind, as she'd bended forwards to reach for Sorun.
"Erm, Nicole? What are you doing?" Sorun asked, body growing tense when Nicole grabbed at his wrists.
"I want to try something," was the only explanation she gave to him before fully pulling Sorun up to his feet. She'd begun taking steps back towards the center of the room, Sorun being forced to follow her with her hands still gripped around his wrists. They'd stopped in the middle of the HQ's living room and then Nicole, face pointed straight at Sorun with a straight expression, said, "I want to try dancing."
It was very possible that in that moment Sorun had suffered a heart attack and hadn't felt it. "Uh-uh-uh-what?" he stuttered out, his wrists unconsciously attempting to weakly wriggle out of Nicole's grasp. "What made you come up with this idea?"
"I saw some of the others doing it earlier, and they seemed to be enjoying themselves." She looked down at their hands. "It's something I've never experienced before. Now seemed like a good time to ask for your help."
"We can't do this some other time?" Sorun nervously asked, his hands still trying to pull out of Nicole's grasp.
To his dismay, Nicole shook her head. "Some of what I heard from the others suggested this is an act only socially acceptable at gatherings such as this. I don't know when another opportunity to try this will arise."
"That doesn't make it an explicit rule or anyth-" Sorun cut himself off and shook his head. "Nicole, I don't even know how to da- I don't even wanna do this."
He didn't. He really, really didn't want to. Too embarrassing, too much to handle, it was too much everything. He was barely standing up on his feet as it was the mere prospect made him so nervous.
Nicole seemed to pick up on his nervousness. "Sorun, nobody will see us if that's what you're uncomfortable with. They're all asleep." She took a couple of steps closer to him. "You're usually the one to help me with these types of matters. I just want to see what it's like before tonight ends."
A low whine sounded out the back of Sorun's throat. He looked down at his currently-gripped wrists, and then looked back up at Nicole's face. The pleading look she had on her face was impossible to miss, and if he looked hard enough, he could almost see that the small smile she had looked nervous as well. It was such a small detail though that Sorun was certain that he was mistaken and just imagined it to make himself feel better.
He could have said no to her. He realized it was in his power, but then a thought had come to him. The whole reason he'd even bothered coming to this party to begin with was because it was very likely to be his last night of fun before finally dying. Mingling about with everybody over all these hours had been... satisfactory, somewhat, in that regard, but he wanted to close the night off with something special. He didn't know what that special something would be, but he supposed a small dance would be good enough. Doubly so if it was with Nicole.
For all he knew this might be one of the last times he ever saw her, after all. And it wasn't like he could ever bring himself to say no to her.
"Ergh... fine," he mumbled out in a voice that was barely above a whisper, his head turning slightly so he didn't have to look her in the eyes. "Just because nobody is watching. If somebody wakes up, though, we're stopping immediately and I'll deny this ever happened."
His demand made Nicole make a single, unsurprised laugh. "That is acceptable. Now..." She began maneuvering Sorun's hands behind her. "I believe this was the position I saw the others performing earlier."
Nicole had moved Sorun's hands so that they rested on the small of her back. She, in turn, had placed her hands on his shoulders. After that they continued to stand there, Nicole continually staring at Sorun's face with an almost curious expression while Sorun himself was trying his best to keep his composure. As if their close proximity hadn't been bad enough, the actual physical contact was making his heart race. At least, he thought it was. The actual feeling of his heart thumping in his chest was present but a bit dulled these days due to the damage of his body.
"S-s-so, um... what-what now?" Sorun asked.
In response, Nicole looked down at their feet. "From what I observed, we simply just... walk."
"Walk? Yeah, we can- that's easy, yeah." Swallowing the lump in his throat, Sorun carefully took a microstep to the right. "Like this?"
Nicole moved in a way that mimicked Sorun's small movement. "I... believe so..." she said, though her tone sounded wholly unsure.
He hadn't been kidding when Sorun had said he had precisely zero experience in dancing. Quite simply, he'd never done it. Never even expressed an interest in it. And it was immediately evident that Nicole had never done any research into the topic either, as, despite the fact she was the one leading them, their movements were hardly something Sorun could even call slow dancing. It was more them just slowly stepping around, hands locked on each other as they continually went from looking at each others' faces to their feet to make sure they wouldn't accidentally step on the other's feet.
Awkward movements from two people that had no idea how to dance in a living room full of passed out people and absolutely no music, and meanwhile Sorun was internally dying from embarrassment. He didn't think anything could make this experience more awkward.
"Well, this is... certainly new," Nicole had commented. She paused for a few moments as they both continued to awkwardly step around, as if she was searching for an appropriate response. "This is nice," she finally settled on.
"It is?" Sorun muttered, disbelief heavy in his tone. That wasn't the impression he was receiving. Between their clunky movements and the fact he felt like he was halfway to passing out, he felt anything but nice.
Nicole nodded. "It's... difficult to put into words. I'm not so sure myself why it's nice." She glanced down at their feet and made a chuckle. "It definitely cannot be attributed to our dancing skills. I somewhat regret not having researched this prior. I'd thought watching it in practice briefly would have been sufficient." She looked back up at Sorun's face. "My apologies, Sorun."
"She thought it would have been sufficient- I thought she got this idea halfway through the party- oh whatever, I don't care enough to think about it." He made a slight hum that cracked repeatedly in its pitch as he looked Nicole in the eyes. "No, it's fine, Nicole. I'm just... glad you're happy with this. Whatever this is."
It was a statement more aimed at himself than towards Nicole, if only to try and calm him down so he could look at the positives to all this. The positives of helping appease Nicole's curiosity, and allowing Sorun to see a smiling Nicole. It'd settled him down somewhat, enough at least that he'd stopped shaking slightly. He was still tensed up enough that virtually every muscle in his body was rigid, though, making most of his movements more jerky than they needed to. It was something Nicole seemed to pick up on.
"You're unusually tense, Sorun," she noted.
"I'm... I'm just thinkin'. Worried, I guess," he said. "Y'know, 'bout... future stuff and all that."
"Am I truly that bad of company that you cannot even bear to focus on me for a minute?"
Sorun began to heavily stutter. "Th-that ain't what I meant-!" he tried to explain, though he stopped when he saw Nicole grinning.
"Merely teasing, Sorun," she said, still grinning at him in that straight and completely innocent face that was anything but.
Sorun pouted and turned away. "You do that too much," he mumbled. "Sorry if I'm kind of being a downer bringing that up, though. I can't... I can't really get it out of my head, you know? Things to come. It's..." He sighed out and shook his head. "I know I'm sounding really stupid right now, but... I don't know." What was he supposed to say, after all? It's not like he could tell her all his fears and beg her to help him find some answer out of this mess, even if he really wanted to.
Fortunately, Nicole didn't seem to mind all that much. "It's fine, Sorun. Admittedly I find myself wandering towards the same subject sometimes. I can't help but notice the toll this war we're all in keeps taking on everyone." She glanced off to the side, towards where Sally was, her sleeping body slumped up against the wall. "It won't last forever, though, and we're closer now more than ever before. But we're not quite yet there, so until then... I suppose we'll just have to enjoy these small moments while we can." She looked back at Sorun. "Thank you for this, Sorun. For making me feel more like one of them, if only for a few brief moments."
He could tell she was genuinely happy. He tried feeling happy for her. He failed miserably with the existential dread of his approaching death weighing down on him. But he didn't want her to perceive any of his negativity, and even though it felt like he was breaking up inside doing it, he gave her a smile. Not a particularly big or impressive one, a smile that barely even moved his lips, but it was all he could manage. "You're welcome, Nicole. What are friends for?"
"Yes, of course. Friends." She looked down a bit, away from Sorun. "Friends," she repeated, quietly and under her breath.
Sorun simply just nodded along. A small, stiff nod that looked anything but relaxed, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances. His composure was nervous enough that he'd felt the hands resting against her back accidentally slip down a bit. He'd felt the sensation of the short tail Nicole had brush over his fingers, and his knee-jerk reaction was to straighten his arms out and take his hands off her entirely. He almost went as far as to push her away out of panic before the sight of her entire body beginning to flicker made him pause.
"Um... your power...?" he'd guessed upon seeing her continually-disappearing form.
"It would seem so." He could hear the displeasure in her voice, which, while not exactly surprising to Sorun, still came as a bit unexpected to him. Her hands were still grabbing onto his shoulders, and she'd even went as far as to squeeze down on them, almost out of frustration. "These limitations of mine..."
"You still have some rings left, right? Couldn't we just...?" Sorun had tried suggesting, though Nicole had cut him off by shaking her head in denial.
"No. It's not necessary." She gave Sorun a half-smile. "I think I would rather save what few Power Rings are left for future occasions."
He wanted to argue that was unwise. That for him there may not be any future moments, especially with what he had planned. But on the other hand, he wasn't sure he could do this any longer himself. His nerves were frayed, and even he was beginning to grow tired from this night. So he relented and gave her a nod.
"Sure, Nicole. Do what you want," he said. "To be honest, I... think I want to go and just pass out along with everyone else, if that's okay with you."
She smiled, and then laughed a bit at him. "Perhaps I will be joining you all," Nicole said. "Please do me the favor of putting me in a place where nobody will accidentally roll over on me in their sleep."
"Not a problem."
There'd been no further words between them. The last Sorun saw of Nicole was the grateful smile she'd given him before her form disappeared entirely. His hand snapped forwards immediately afterwards to catch the small handheld computer before it hit the ground, which he carefully cradled in his hands as he walked towards the couch.
"What a night," he tiredly thought to himself. He'd practically crashed onto the couch when he'd arrived to it, and then proceeded to hold Nicole's handheld up for him to see. The green screen had gone dark, indicating she wasn't active at the moment. He chuckled once, closed the handheld, and then carefully set it down on the nearby armrest.
He sunk right into the couch afterwards, eyes beginning to grow heavy. He couldn't help but take a final glance around at all the passed-out forms of the Freedom Fighters around him, making a breathy sigh in the process.
"Man..." Sorun thought to himself as his eyes finally closed. "I'm really gonna miss this..."
