Work Text:
"Miss Amy Rose, I... I can’t..." Cream gasped, her voice barely a whisper. She stumbled, her momentum faltering. Her small body, so often nimble and quick, came to a clumsy halt with her paws resting on her knees.
Next year, Cream would be in her second year at school, and the idea of joining the track club had been all her idea. Inspired, Amy knew, by watching her. Amy loved running, and she figured she saw that, saw the way she moved, but Cream was small and compact like a little hummingbird. Amy, meanwhile, was twice her age, and built for speed. Wiry, all sinew and lean muscle. Cream was practically still a baby.
They had started out slow, a gentle jog around the perimeter of nearby Never Lake. Amy kept pace with Cream, but after only a few minutes, Cream was already lagging, her tiny legs struggling to keep pace with Amy’s. The gap between them widened with every stride. Cream sucked in a ragged breath, her small chest heaving. Her legs, little sticks really, lagged like lead. When she eventually stopped, she collapsed onto the grass and let the tears that pricked at her eyes spill over.
"See?" she puffed, "I can’t do it. I can't."
Amy's jog winds down and she pivots on one foot to bring her eyes back on Cream and she hummed, nose twitching in thought. Cream was such an expressive little rabbit that she was so easy for her to read.
Cream had already kicked off her shoes, busying herself with pulling off her socks to air out her overheating paws. Her small face is upturned to meet Amy's gaze with open honesty; her golden eyes framed by damp lashes, and her heavy lopped ears pinned flat to the back of her head.
"Sure you can," Amy said convincingly, kneeling down to Cream's side. "Maybe you just need the right motivation. What if you pretend that you're being chased by a scary monster that wants to eat you?"
Cream honestly seemed to be considering that. "Well, that doesn't sound very fun."
For Amy, it was fun. That was her problem. It's why she kept doing it, it's why she was good at it. She stood in defiance of Eggman and his robots over and over again, putting her life at risk practically nightly, just for the opportunity to ruin some rich human oligarch's day. Though there was no fear of being killed and eaten, she understood better than most the feeling of being chased by monsters and trampled to death. The mechanically inexorable pawns that crawled along every surface of Eggman's properties were fast.
Amy was faster.
"What if it's me? I can chase you." Amy grins, and pokes an index finger into Cream's side to make the little girl squirm from the ticklish affection. Cream swatted at her paws with a little bark, and Amy relented with a laugh. "Maybe I'll eat you right up."
"Bwaahh... but you mostly just eat bugs and stuff, right?"
"Mmm, mostly. Maybe I have a taste for baby rabbit?"
"Miss Amy Rose!" Cream whines. She gets her legs underneath her and hops off of the ground, twisting back upright on her feet with another. "You're messing with me again."
Miss Amy Rose. No matter how much she tried to convince Cream that she didn't need to be so formal with her, that just Amy was fine, she wouldn't once budge. She's a perfect little girl, polite and soft-spoken in that way parents love, who hardly dares to ask for anything, always aching to please. Amy can see Vanilla's paw prints all over Cream even if she's certain that her mother had never raised a paw to hit her. Even so...
Even so, it's not that she hated it. Amy Rose had chosen her name, every syllable, and privately delighted in the way her only real friend loved to use it. It was affirming, in a way.
Amy's eyes flit back to attention, and her teeth flash an easy smile. "Am I? Better be quick so you don't have to find out."
She looked up at Amy, her big golden eyes still wet from the exertion. With “Okay... but you make it look so easy."
Amy huffed, blowing air out of her mouth that tickled at her whiskers. "It looking easy and it being easy are two different things. Put your shoes back on."
Except, it was easy for her. She could run for miles without breaking a sweat, while Cream was already struggling after less than a lap.
She hadn't started that way: since she was eight, she'd been running, and she stopped to catch her breath only when she could dare to find the room to hide. So she got faster, stronger, and more cunning, too. She had to be, and she was nothing if not a quick learner. Amy didn't have the luxury of practice laps at the idyllic Never Lake shoreline like Cream does, she'd gotten her start running for her life from those same robots she now uses her skills to terrorize.
It was worth it, though. Eggman gets what comes to him, and Cream looks at her like she hung Little Planet in the sky herself. She liked the way Cream looked to her like an idol, the way Cream wanted to be more like her, she relished in the attention. She still wasn't used to it, despite all the time she and Cream had spent together, and she was a glutton for it.
"Alright," Amy called, her voice echoing slightly in the crisp air. "One minute, that’s your head start. Think cheetah. Or, you know, like, a horse, or something."
Cream giggled, a nervous tremor in the sound. "I'm a rabbit," She bounced on the balls of her feet, then, with a deep breath, launched herself forward once again.
Amy kept track of it in her head. Sixty seconds. She stretched, a familiar tension unraveling in her hamstrings. This wasn’t a race, but a chase? A hunt? That was something else entirely. Even without any Rings, she wouldn't have any trouble catching up to Cream. Cream knew it too - but it was enough for the little girl to give it her all anyways. Amy had no intention of catching Cream, not really. That wouldn't be helpful for the little girl's spirit or endurance.
She cast her eyes over the foam crash of Never Lake's water against the shore, and breathed. The trees swayed gently in the wind, and the sunlight dappled a kaleidoscope across the water. Amy ran her hands through her quills, straightened out her ribbon, smoothed out the front of her shirt and skirt. Idle maintenance.
The second hand ticked over. The stoplight in her mind flicked from red to green and Amy was off like the wind.
She moved with the effortless grace honed by her years of practice, a ribbon unwinding with every stride. She feels the wind brushing past her ears, tugging at her quills. The air was crisp against her skin, cooled by the lakeside breeze. She wasn't pushing herself, not yet. She scanned the path ahead, her eyes picking out the subtle shifts in Cream’s form, the slight wobble in her gait as the little girl kept her pace.
Fifty meters. No sign of slowing down, the little rabbit ahead of her, the bounce of her heavy lop ears to-and-fro. Amy thinks she likes playing cat and mouse.
One hundred. Cream was gaining confidence, her arms pumping with a semblance of rhythm. Amy kept a steady pace, a current of energy, the rhythmic thump of her own feet in the damp earth a metronome against the chirping of the cicadas.
One hundred fifty. The gap was closing. Amy could almost taste the salt of her sweat, hear the frantic rasp of Cream's breath. She adjusted her speed, subtly, the way a hawk circles before its final dive.
Two hundred. Cream's form was disintegrating, her strides shortening, her head drooping. Amy saw the end coming and struck in with a burst of speed: She was a predator now, focused, relentless, closing the distance, her sneakers a blur, and then:
Cream, oblivious, stumbled, her knees buckling. Amy was there in an instant, her paws reaching out and snatching Cream around the middle before she fell. Her arms a firm anchor, preventing a full-blown tumble.
They both came to a breathless halt. Cream, flushed and panting, leaned heavily against an amused Amy. Cream leans in to the touch. Amy's paws were as familiar as her own, and the trust there made Amy's heart flutter despite herself.
"I thought I was... going to... die," Cream gasped, between ragged breaths.
Amy grinned, her own chest heaving. Her laughter is low and rumbling, and pressed close to Cream the way she is, it vibrated through her small body. "Not yet."
There's the ghost-whisper of Amy's hot mouth against the fur on the back of Cream's neck, and her small body betrayed her when Cream couldn’t hold back the way it makes her shiver. Amy laughed again, pleased with herself, and her wet nose nuzzles at her fur - it's the only warning Cream gets before Amy nipped at her, pinching skin between her teeth.
Cream yelped and wriggled in Amy's arms. She let go with a laugh, for fear that Cream might accidentally stick herself on her quills.
"You bit me!" Smoothing out her wet fur with a palm, Cream stamped an indignant foot. Amy wanted to tease her about it.
"I warned you I'd eat you," Amy drawled, then added, "I'd never lie to such a cute girl."
"Miss Amy Rose," Cream whined again, her face warm, and Amy could devour the keen of her little voice. Though she struggled with the formality of it, she loved the way Cream's mouth curled around every syllable.
Amy leaned forward to hold Cream close again, and Cream let her despite her show of protest a second prior. Amy pressed a kiss into the warm tuft of fur on her forehead, and the Cream's sweat-damp paws come up to hug around Amy's back, fingers dancing carefully over the outline of her quills through her shirt.
"I'm sweaty," Cream mumbled, but lowered her head until she was nestled against Amy’s chest like she didn't want her to let go. "It's gross."
"Mm, that's fine. I don't mind."
"You're sweaty too," Cream pawed at her. It left a dark patch on the front of Amy's shirt from the sweat trapped in Cream's soft paw fur, and Amy's brow screwed tight from the feeling of it on her chest. She said she didn't mind, but recoiled anyways.
"Hedgehogs don't sweat!" Amy laughed.
"Wait, seriously?" And when Cream's little laughter joins in with hers, it sounded to Amy like music.