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Metal Sonic didn’t quite understand why he felt the things he did.
He couldn’t say he was familiar with feelings, but he’d always known what they entailed. Happiness, it was like a ray of sunshine, but in your heart. That had been what Amy Rose had said to him years ago on Little Planet, when he’d asked her what it felt like. He’d truly experience it himself later on, but as she said that, he only focused on her expression. It was hopeful, like the ruthless killing machine beside her would don a bright, flashy smirk like his loathsome copy she seemed to love so much. He only idly scratched at some glitter glue caught in the smaller hedgehog’s fur near her muzzle, with her complaining that it tickled. He really did feel “happy” at that moment, he supposed, and he would’ve smiled at her squirming if he had a mouth, but he’d only tensed then, hyper-focused on not nicking her as he cleaned with his claws, sharp like knives, and born out of the doctor’s desire for carnage.
Oh, how he hated them at a time like this.
He’d dreamt, which he’d previously thought was impossible, of having the hands of a Mobian, just once, after he decided he was no longer allied with Dr. Eggman after years of torture, and allied himself with his copy’s friends (not his choice, but a pink hedgehog’s.) It was unrealistic, irrational because it’d never come true, but he’d dreamt it. Finally being able to move his hands across fur, the flesh underneath, with no fear of leaving five angry lines, dripping scarlet. When he awoke, alone in Amy’s living room, the only light being his red eyes in the dark, he dug his hands into his leg, hard. He didn’t feel the physical pain, that wasn’t in his programming, but somewhere, in his core, he’d felt the blades that were his fingers impress into the metal of his thigh, leaving five crescents, and it hurt. It emotionally mutilated him, stung him to the bone, or, lack of bones, he supposed. He’d screamed out in a flurry of beeps after, throwing away any desire to use the vocal synthesizer Tails had built for him. He hadn’t noticed until a tired hedgehog rushed down the stairs, one of her signature hammers in hand. She’d picked the one that had yellow and bright blue swirls weaved up and down the head, the one that would cause electricity to crackle and fizz around the impact spot. Maybe she hadn’t put any mind into her choice, but he’d always picked it as his favourite of her hammers because its boldness reminded him of her. His beeping slowed to a few distressed buzzes as she came down to sit beside him, but he couldn’t tell her about the dream. She wouldn’t understand, she couldn’t. So he stayed silent as she kissed promises onto his cold face, that it’d be okay. It’d help on any other day, but he stilled, numb as the day he was made. She’d let him sleep in her bed that night, but he couldn’t bear the thought of her snuggling into him, touching him with her soft body, so vulnerable to his angular form. So he turned his back. Needless to say, hurt was an emotion he didn’t need Amy to tell him about.
Then there was its opposite, love. Amy had said it was like happiness, only stronger, like bubbles were in your stomach, rising up in your throat and threatening to pop. He realised he’d been feeling this instead of simple happiness a while ago. The pink hedgehog would speak, and a soft bliss would buzz around in his head, one he’d never been able to locate the source of. Love was confusing, irrational, stupid. Unlike the other emotions he’d felt like that about, though, he didn’t want it to end. He wordlessly chased and chased after the feeling, not thinking back for a second, but he never stopped to think about the consequences of his feelings, what would come from the high he felt every time she held him tight. Did he think Amy would genuinely reciprocate? Oh, of course not. It was foolish of him to even think of. Thinking, however, was also something Metal could never stop doing.
And so he watched. He watched as Amy chased after his insufferable clone, the one he was destined to destroy. He listened as she cried softly some nights when she thought he couldn’t hear, shuffling the cards she held dear to her desperately trying to find an answer, a message from a higher power that this was not how things were supposed to go. Irrational, reasonless, but she continued chasing. And he just watched. He saw his disgusting template try and brush her off, running away every single time. He saw how she shook, finding the pieces of her heart and piecing it back together, bit by bit, just so she could demolish it all over again.
Amy was a fool, he thought, but so was he.
She couldn’t love him. She shouldn’t. He could never be hers. No matter how complex his feelings were, he could never be biological like her. He was artificial, a machine. A weapon. A tool.
A lie.
Something that can only cause pain wherever it goes. Something someone as lovely as her should steer clear away from, lest she was to get hurt. And Chaos forbid she was hurt. Metal knew these things, he couldn’t forget anything in this body, he wasn’t able to. He knew they could never be together.
So why, then, was he sobbing as Amy clutched him tight, as she told him she loved him, not giving a damn his hands were cutting into her as she whimpered into his chest? Why did she have to feel the same way about a monster like him? Why did he cup her face when she leaned in for a kiss?
Metal didn’t know why he felt some things, but he knew how he felt well enough.