Chapter Text
Blaze was standing in line at a pizza joint with Silver and Amy after a weekend-long mission. It had gone so well that Amy insisted on taking them all out to celebrate. Now, though, Amy was glued to her phone and pouting down at it sadly.
“What’s wrong, Amy?”
Amy jumped a little, then smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, Blaze. Shadow had to spend the weekend by himself. He won’t admit he’s lonely, but I can tell.”
Blaze sighed and shook her head. “Sounds like Shadow, alright.” She paused for a moment and thought about how Shadow had been looking at her friend lately–her codependent friend who’d been single for far, far too long–and added, “Why don’t we ask him to join us?”
“Sounds great!” Silver piped up, rocking back onto his heels in excitement. “I never get to see Shadow.”
Amy started typing again. “Good idea!”
A mere five seconds after Amy sent the message, Shadow appeared in a bright flash of green light directly in front of her. “I’m here.”
Blaze had to hold back a bark of laughter at his immediate appearance. Can this guy get any more obvious?
Silver wasn’t as amused. He yelped in surprise at the bright flash and reflexively latched onto Amy’s arm. After a moment, he opened his eyes again and smiled sheepishly, embarrassed at his response.
Amy grinned and reassured him. “Don’t worry about it. Shadow hates bright lights, too.”
Shadow’s response was different. His eyes drifted to Silver, who was still clinging onto Amy. His eyes narrowed.
Blaze cringed. Uh-oh...
Luckily, the host showed up right then to lead them to their seats. Shadow not-so-subtly pushed his way through to ensure he could sit next to Amy, so Silver sat on Amy’s other side between her and Blaze in the rounded booth. The host let them know their waitress would be right over. Shadow nodded silently, while Silver and Amy responded with identical smiles–exactly the same, right down to the matching friendly head-tilt they always made.
Once Blaze saw it, she could never un-see it.
As promised, the waitress came by to take their drink orders. After Blaze made her selection, she listened in silent amusement to her friends’ responses.
“I’ll take an orange juice, please!” Amy piped up.
“Hmph. Soda water for me.”
“Do you have orange soda?” Silver asked hopefully. When the waitress nodded, he grinned in excitement. “Great! I’ll have that!”
Blaze hid her reaction once more. One of her favorite parts of spending time with these three was the way Silver’s preferences and characteristics were just a straightforward combination of Shadow and Amy’s; even a couple hundred years down the line, the apple apparently hadn’t fallen far from the tree. This was only reinforced when the waitress departed and they discussed their pizza preferences.
“What do you like on your pizza, Shadow?” Amy asked.
“Peppers. They add just the right amount of flavor and texture.”
Amy wrinkled her nose. “That wouldn’t do it for me, but I guess I don’t have room to talk. Is it weird that I just like onions on my pizza?”
“Not if you combine the two. Pepper and onion is my favorite!” Silver enthused.
Blaze shook her head. Chaos...it’s just one plus one equals two. How in the world have they not figured this out yet?!
“What about you, Blaze?”
She snapped out of her thoughts at Amy’s words. “Uh...anchovies?” At their obvious looks of disgust, she shrugged. “More for me.”
They ordered their food. It arrived, and Blaze cringed as Silver spoke excitedly through mouthfuls of pizza about the mission. “Shadow, you should have seen it! Our teamwork was perfect!”
“Silver, don’t talk with your mouth full. It’s gross,” Amy scolded.
“Sorry, mom,” Silver teased.
Blaze covered her face. DEAR CHAOS.
Silver paused to swallow his food before continuing. “And Amy keeps getting better and better. She has this new move where she shoots heart-shaped Chaos projectiles!”
Amy brightened up. “Actually, Shadow was the one who taught me that! They’re just like his Chaos Spears!”
Seeing a chance to help out, Blaze jumped in. “You two have been working together a ton recently, haven’t you?”
Shadow openly preened. “Hmph. Of course. We spend a lot of time together, both on and off of the battlefield.”
His competitive tone went right over Silver’s head. “Cool! It’s the same for us! I taught Amy how to do that invisibility trick recently, and she’s been teaching me how to summon objects. It’ll be great to call up ammunition to throw with psychokinesis at will!” His grin turned embarrassed. “I can’t even come close to summoning a hammer yet, though. I can barely do smaller objects.”
Shadow picked up a nearby spoon. “You mean like this?” he suggested, trying to look unimpressed.
Again, Silver didn’t get it. “Yeah, exactly!” He beamed, unashamed.
“I’m sure you’ll get it. It took me a while to get the hang of it, too,” Amy reassured him. She turned to Shadow. “Silver and I are really close, you know! We have a lot in common.”
Blaze could see the way Shadow’s teeth clenched. “I’m sure,” he spat.
Amy frowned. “Shadow? Are you alright? You look kind of tense.”
Silver laughed and pointed at the utensil in Shadow’s clenched fist. “Look, he bent the spoon! Maybe he can join Team Psy, too!”
Shadow glanced at the spoon he’d accidentally bent in his irritation and put it down. He scowled. “’Team Psy?’”
Amy nodded happily. “I needed a stealthier team for this mission, and I thought these two would be great! Silver has psychokinesis, Blaze has pyrokinesis, and I have my spiritual Chaos techniques. Since we all have mind powers, I decided on ‘Team Psy’ for our name! What do you think?”
Shadow looked torn between being smitten at Amy’s adorable grin and feeling hurt at having been left out. He took a bite of his pizza and bitterly spoke through it, matching Silver’s table manners. “I can do stealth, too, you know. I would have gone with you if you’d wanted me there.”
“Actually, you were the first person I thought of,” Amy admitted, shrugging casually.
Shadow stopped and swallowed his food. “Really?”
She nodded. “Of course! I always have fun when I spend time with you!” Shadow’s ears turned red, at least until she added, “You’re one of my closest friends!”
Shadow flinched noticeably. He tried to hide it behind a more serious look. “...Right. Of course.”
Blaze winced. Ouch! Getting his hopes up, then immediately friend-zoning him...Amy, you have no idea how cruel you are!
“So why didn’t you invite him?” Silver asked, pouting. “I would’ve loved to work with Shadow, too.”
“He usually spends time with Team Dark on Saturdays,” Amy explained.
Shadow crossed his arms and nodded. “G.U.N. didn’t have a mission for us this time, though, and Tails is giving Omega a tune-up. As for Rouge...” Shadow’s look turned suspicious. “She said she had some flying-based business to attend to, but I saw her meet up with Wave before she left.”
“Wait...” Blaze’s brow furrowed. “You don’t think...”
Amy’s eyes lit up as she caught on, too, and she grinned mischievously. “Ohhhh, I get it!”
“I don’t,” Silver admitted, cocking his head in confusion.
Seeing an opportunity to diffuse any remaining tension, Blaze successfully steered the conversation in the direction of ‘Are Rouge and Wave dating?’ It was working well until Silver started fidgeting with his quills, letting out a groan of frustration.
“What’s wrong?” Amy asked.
“I can never get my quills to sit right,” Silver grumbled. He pushed his front mass of quills forward to display his scalp. “I have this super weird horizontal quill-line, and it divides the front from the back. It always separates out, and the front doesn’t lie flat with the back. It always looks so awkward!”
Amy took a look at his quills, pulled them forward, and gasped. “No way! You have the same weird quill-line I do!”
“Wait, seriously? You have it, too?!”
Amy nodded furiously. “Yeah! Half the hedgehogs on my mom’s side had it! Why do you think I wear this headband?” She pointed to it. “The only way we could get it to look decent is to work with it instead of against it.” She pointed to her bangs. “This front bit still pops up, but I think it still works, right?”
Silver’s eyes were aglow. “Yeah! I’ve always thought it was cute!” Amy smiled, and Shadow looked away, clearly displeased. “I’ve never met anyone with this quill-line. How else did your family deal with it?”
“Well, the styles are a little outdated, but you could make them work! They tried things like this...”
With that, Amy started combing her hands through Silver’s quills, moving them this way and that while she gave him tips. Silver’s grin only grew. Blaze knew Silver well enough to know it was just out of excitement over the new styles, but judging by Shadow’s increasingly irritated expressions and the way he watched Amy’s affectionate touches, he was definitely reading too much into the innocent exchange.
Thankfully, it ended when Silver reached out to touch Amy’s quills out of curiosity, only to yelp in pain. “Jeez, Amy, how’d you get your quills so sharp?”
Amy grinned proudly and dramatically tossed her quills to show them off. “I’ve been using Shadow’s conditioner a lot lately. It’s coarse and sharpens your quills. Very useful!”
Shadow straightened up again and smirked. “Hmph. Amy’s been spending a lot of time at my place lately, and I always make her really sweaty and tired, so she showers and sleeps over with me.”
Amy burst out in laughter and slapped Shadow’s arm. “Don’t say it like that, you’re going to make them think it’s something weird!” She turned back to the others. “We spar a lot, and I always need a shower afterward. I sleep over, too—in the guest room, thank you very much!” Her scolding of Shadow devolved into laughter once more.
Once again oblivious to Shadow’s implications, Silver grinned even wider. “That’s great! I love sparring with Amy, too! I don’t have a guest room like you do, though, so she has to sleep in my bed.”
Shadow’s eyes went wide with rage. Amy cut in. “Silver, you’re as bad as he is! It’s not like we sleep there at the same time!”
Blaze looked between her three friends: the one who didn’t know the meaning of flirtation and was truly just complimenting a friend; the one who knew how to flirt but never caught on when she was on the receiving end; and the one who knew just enough about socialization to get upset over nothing.
Blaze hid her face in her hands. And if I tell Shadow the one thing that’ll reassure him, I could break the timeline. She peeked up between her fingers at his tense pose and expression. At least he’ll know in two hundred years.
“Uh, Blaze? Earth to Blaze?”
Amy’s words snapped Blaze out of her thoughts. “What?”
“We’re planning out the next mission. We have a job to do on Wednesday. The yearly turtle hatching is due to happen then. The turtles by Seaside Hill’s cliffs are endangered, so it’s essential that we make sure as many of the baby turtles as possible make it to the ocean safely! Are you free to help out?”
Blaze cringed. “Cliffs? Sorry, but I don’t mix well with heights.”
“That’s alright. I’m sure Shadow, Silver, and I can handle it!” Amy reached her arms around both of them and pulled them close.
Blaze smiled wryly. Great. You can be Team Oblivious Hedgehogs. Fighting and comedy rolled into one.
Amy pulled them closer and snuggled blissfully between the two of them. “Ah...I love how you two both have chest fur like this. You’re so soft!”
Silver matched Shadow’s conflicted expression with another bright smile. Blaze shook her head.
Amy paid the bill, and the four of them left, promising to meet up again soon. As the three hedgehogs departed, Blaze could hear Silver sigh and say, “Man, I just love hanging out with you two! I don’t know what it is, but I just feel so at home, you know?”
“Hmm...do you think it’s because we’re all hedgehogs?”
“I don’t think so, Amy. It’s not like this with Sonic.”
“Weird...”
Blaze face-palmed. You have no idea.