Brittle

"Does life seem kind of… absurd to you, sometimes?"

"How so?"

"Maybe there are days where you feel like you lack purpose, you know? Maybe the feeling comes in the early mornings, when you're lying in bed, your eyes closed, feeling trapped and alone with your thoughts. Your head might hurt and maybe you wish you could keep on sleeping. Or maybe the feeling comes at night, when you're thirsty and unsatisfied, but what you tend to drink isn't what you really need. Maybe the time of day doesn't matter. You might think of doing something you'll regret. Maybe you do it anyway."

Rouge slowly turns her groomed head to gaze cautiously up at Amy, youthfully unkempt and naturally, effortlessly pretty by comparison.

Sitting on the low wall in a fluffy jacket and soft trousers, delicately balanced and bright against the overcast sky, the hedgehog swings her skinny legs from the edge. Her heavyset boots gleam.

The bat frowns delicately. She's standing, but she's also leaning, her back pressing against the wall to ease the weight on her knee. Her cane has been propped beside her in its current disuse. Her eyes are cold and searching. Concerned.

"You might hope for a purpose on those mornings, those nights, those days. The whenever. Maybe you still have hope that it's not too late for you. Hope that you might find some reason to exist and to keep trying to better yourself, let alone try at all."

Large ears downturn very slightly, very subtly.

"But maybe there's the fear that…" Tangible hesitation. The hedgehog runs her tongue briefly over her teeth. "That…"

"That perhaps you're quite useless."

Sonic sets his hands on Amy's shoulders and gently stops her advance.

Tipsy and shivering, she closes her eyes for a moment. Opens them again and looks up, finding his.

Kind and unwilling.

"Please."

"You know my answer to that already, Ames."

Mounting frustration in the wake of unfulfilled desire, her body aches for him. She can hardly stand it. The distance between their mouths, the way his hips avoid her fingertips, the way he keeps her at bay with force, although gentle.

"I just… I don't know how else to say it. How to make you accept it."

"Then don't. Don't say it. Kiss me, instead."

"After all these years, can't we just be friends?"

"Can't you just pretend we're not? Pretend that we're more than that, at least, for a while?"

He's about to say no, again.

Wrenching herself away, spilling tears, she leaves the room before he can.

"You aren't useless, hon."

"Maybe."

"And maybe I'm rude, but I'm beginning to think that you're probably just as messed up as me."

Green eyes, filled with energy and emotion, slowly swivel down. "Maybe that's why we hang out, now, huh?" Amy winks, then brushes quills aside, exposing her cheek to the cold.

"Misery loves company." Under such a gaze, Rouge attempts to smile. It's tentative and quiet, but true. "If it makes you feel any better, I think everybody's got a purpose, kiddo."

"You do?"

"Yeah. And I like to think that everybody is capable of doing good, if they so choose, and that ultimately our purpose should be to do good."

"It's so interesting that you're the one telling me this and not the other way around."

"Maybe you're having an influence on me."

Shadow's room. It's still his room, although it's not.

Rouge crosses her legs, seated meditatively in the centre of the bare mattress. She studies the inviting pile of pillows before her that might, betwixt some fibres somewhere, still carry his scent. She comes here, sometimes, when she misses him. She admits to herself that, actually, she comes here often.

Their quiet talks in the early mornings, his trembling yet firm grip after a nightmare, her head nestled atop his lap whist he reads. It's all still so tangible, so alive, in this place particularly.

She feels the weight of her phone as she slowly draws it out of her pocket and directs her stare upon it. She feels the weight like a distant dream, not quite real to her. The weight of the phone is too real too suddenly when the dial tone resounds like a siren in her ear, then cuts short.

"Why do you feel like you might have no purpose?"

They've moved on, walking side by side alongside the wall.

"I thought my life's goal was to marry Sonic and have his children. That never happened and I doubt it ever will. Every time I try to get closer to him, despite my change in tactics over the years – sometimes delicate, sometimes delectable, sometimes desperate – he gives me the same answer. Not interested."

"Mm."

"It really hurts my womanhood, you know? That part of my self-worth."

"Yeah, I just might."

Moss grows between the stones, thriving.

"You evidently need to reconsider your purpose."

"Don't know if I want to."

"Even though it might be better for you?"

"I'm in love with him. It's as simple and complicated as that."

Rouge glances aside at her companion.

Amy is deep in thought and yet this makes her look unfocused and aimless on the outside. She craves the numbing buzz of alcohol. She can read the labels on the bottles in her head. She wants to forget but she knows she is more likely to remember, more likely to do something that'll probably make her feel more disgusting and unwanted afterward. She knows not what to do.

"I don't understand it, either."

The hedgehog blinks, surprised by the bat's tone, the unexpected intrusion.

"You're lovely."

Amy glares at Rouge, but it isn't inhospitable. It's disbelieving.

"What, have you led yourself to believe all these years that you're ugly, just because one guy doesn't want you like that?"

"I… I don't…"

"You are not ugly. I'm ugly. I've got an ugliness that's internal and it's worse. But you? You're lovely inside and out."

"You… You really think so?"

"Maybe you don't draw as much attention as I do. But my beauty is skin-deep, as dumb as my admirers might be for not recognising me, who I really am, when they look me in the eye and see mostly bitterness and guilt looking back. People can be superficial like that. Still."

"Still?"

"Even with all my faults, I think you're a catch. You don't give yourself nearly enough credit. Like I said before. You're lovely."

"That's… really kind of you to say."

"Not really. Just saying it like I see it."

"I don't think I believe you."

"Then don't. In my eyes, you're a gem. I know what gems look like."

"I… I want to believe you."

"You might, someday."

"Someday, maybe."

"Yeah. And if you just open your mind and heart to someone else, someone other than Sonic, I imagine you'll have a boyfriend without breaking a sweat."

"I don't want a boyfriend. I want Sonic."

"There's your problem right there."

"He is not a problem!"

"Easy, now."

"Sorry. My fan-girlish tendencies are showing."

"No, he isn't your problem. But your unfair expectations of him are."

"My… expectations."

"Maybe you should just let him be."

"Hi."

Rouge wants to laugh. She wants to cry.

Shadow's voice, so close, like he's murmuring against her cheek again.

"I think you could make someone happy. Maybe that someone isn't Sonic, but still, that someone could be worthy of you, anyway. You could find happiness in having that special something with that special someone who makes you happy."

"Maybe. What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Don't you want someone special in your life? To have that something special, that happiness?"

"Hon, please, I'm probably too dysfunctional for a relationship."

"I disagree. I think you just need to work on yourself a bit."

Rouge limps, her stony features relaxing as she gestures about herself like she's making a joke at her own expense. "What guy would tolerate me for longer than a quick bit of fun?"

"That isn't fair to yourself. You have qualities that could make him stay."

"Nah, kiddo, I think I'm being fair. Those qualities? Seems like I just… push people away, avoid them, and I sneer at their happiness unless it's my own, too. Seems like I don't make people happy unless it's self-serving, somehow, and that? That seems hideous to me. Where are those qualities you speak of, now?"

"You're terribly brutal."

"Don't hold your breath for me, dear. Rather focus on you, on being your best you. Let me worry about me."

Amy thinks on this for several moments before looping their arms together, the hedgehog forming a link between them, joined by the bat's elbow.

"This is cosy."

"Uh-huh."

"I'll allow it."

"Thanks."

"But consider what I've said, alright? Would you consider it?"

"Consider opening my mind, my heart, to some other guy who is worthy of me, of who I really am?"

"That, exactly."

"Yeah. Maybe I will."

They walk before the onset of rain, arm in arm, together.

"So," Amy says eventually, conversationally, "wanna grab something to nibble on?"

"I want…" Rouge's expression becomes dramatically contemplative. "Donuts."

"I know just the place."

"All the donuts."

"No, not all the donuts."