Warning: Beware of strange humor, exaggerations, a colourful mix of parodying and seriously meant elements, some cases of shipping and anti-shipping, bluntly phrased personal opinions, and stuff. It's a parody, poking fun not on the characters, but more on a quite common phenomenon and the often superficial and one-sided way it's looked upon in fanfics...
~Speedy

Set in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood; during the Twilight Cage story arc.

Between Red And Blue

Whistling quietly to himself, Sonic opened the door to the space ship's kitchen, finding Knuckles, Rouge and Amy already there. "Yo guys," he nodded in casual greeting.

"Sonic!" Amy beamed.

"Hey, Big Blue," Rouge said, leisurely leaned back on her chair.

"Any news?", Knuckles asked, standing up from where he'd sat at a table with a glass of juice, and walked over to the hedgehog.

Sonic shook his head. "Nope. Tails, Cream and Shade are on the bridge; they said it'll take a couple hours to reach the next planetoid. I got no idea what Shads and Omega are doing… or where." He opened the fridge, reaching for a small bottle of Chaos Cola. "I kinda wonder what kind of language problem the Zoah will have... or whom they'll confuse us for." Ignoring the weird look Knuckles shot him, Sonic took a gulp out of the bottle.

"Probably Nocturnus spies again," Amy threw in. "Or Kron spies... or N'rrgal spies... or some other spies. Whatever."

"Being locked up in this dimension seems to have bad side effects." Rouge tapped her fingertips on the table in front of her. "Everyone we meet got issues..."

"I don't care what or who they think we are. They have a Chaos Emerald, and the Chaos Emeralds are our ticket to Ix's fortress," Knuckles remarked. "I don't care about anything else. We've got to get the Master Emerald back."

"I know," Sonic soothed. He really didn't need another fit of anxiety around here. "Nobody is forgetting that. We'll get it. They don't know what they're up against." He took another gulp of coke. "But we can't do anything until Tails puts the cyclone on solid ground again... So, we got some more dead hours to kill."

"How do you plan on spending them, darlin'?", Rouge asked when he turned around, her legs crossed at the knees, her right foot whipping playfully, her posture easily showing off what her clothing didn't bother much to conceal, and her turquoise eyes behind dark, long eyelashes blinking at Sonic.

The blue hedgehog gaped at her, but even before he had a chance to really react, another person in the kitchen did.

With a loud crash her chair toppled backwards and landed on the floor as Amy Rose shot out of it, her hands heavily leaning on the table that separated her and the white bat, green eyes ablaze with fury. "Who do you think you are, flirting with Sonic like that?"

Rouge shrugged, in a gesture of disinterest pretending to regard her fingernails, in spite of wearing long shafted gloves. "Why do you even care, Pinky? I thought you had a boyfriend?"

"What do you know about that?", Amy shouted, still furious. "You're after everything male on two legs!"

Rouge's eyes moved up from her hands to look at Amy with a smug look. "Coming from someone who spent their life chasing after a certain blue hedgehog that is a rather strange thing to say, don't you think?"

Staring at the two girls starting to shout at each other, Sonic hardly managed to close his gaping jaw when Knuckles' finger tapped his side. The hedgehog looked over at his friend. "You got an idea what's going on?"

The echidna shook his head. "No, but I got an idea what I'm going to do." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Retreat!"

"Great plan," Sonic agreed, spinning on his heels and dashing out of the kitchen. Knuckles followed suit, and the two friends didn't stop until they were almost at the cyclone's engine section and could no longer hear Amy's angered screaming or Rouge's teasing remarks.

Dropping against the wall next to one of the small windows on the corridor that allowed a look into space and slowly sliding down on it, Sonic shook his head in defeat. "Geez, just what was that?"

"Impending doom," Knuckles wheezed, sweat-dropping, sitting against the opposite wall. "How comes you're starting arguments wherever you go?"

"Me?" Sonic's emerald eyes widened and his ears folded against his head, giving him a strange look between shocked and hurt. "ME? I didn't do anything! It's not my fault these two start a catfight! All I did was walk in!"

A moment passed in utter silence, then Knuckles sighed in apology. "Probably you're right there." He looked over at the blue hedgehog. "What's it about you and girls, anyway?"

"I'm not sure, maybe I'm just hot." Sonic grinned.

The red echidna pointed at Sonic's forehead. "Yes, in there, hedgehog."

Sonic stuck out his tongue. "Aw, come on. I must have something they all want."

"Something the rest of us is doing wrong, huh?" Knuckles snickered. "Maybe you should be glad they like you."

Sighing, Sonic let his head drop against the wall in his back, shivering briefly at the sensation of his quills bending slightly. "It's not near as much fun as it seems."

Knuckles tilted his head. "That's a strange thing coming from Mister 'I'm the greatest'."

Sonic grimaced. "You confuse me with Shadow."

The echidna shrugged. "You both have your moments."

"Maybe." Sonic shook his head. "And I thought when I came back and Amy told me she had a boyfriend I could get some peace. If I was that Dexter I'd be rather annoyed by my girlfriend still being into her old crush... That is, if he even exists."

"You wouldn't miss the attention at all?" Knuckles raised an eyebrow.

"Seriously, Knux. I know Amy for years. When I met her, she was eight, I was eleven and I had slightly different worries than her strange ideas." Sonic pulled his knees close and rested his chin on them. "You know, love wasn't a concept for me then, I was still a kid, and I had Eggman and his weird plans to worry about, and a five-years-old Tails to care for." Sonic looked over at his friend. "Now imagine my situation. Ever since I met and rescued her, she kept following me around, screaming bloody marriage before I had gotten even close enough to call her a friend, and if I denied her dreamy wedding and girlfriend ideas, I got whacked with that giant hammer of doom. It's not really what makes you attracted to a girl."

Knuckles thoughtfully tilted his head. "I… start to see your point, yes." A smirk tugged on his lips.

Sonic sighed. "I've seen her mostly as an annoyance first, but I got used to her, I think. Quite often, I even pitied her... But you can't talk to her sensibly without meeting her piko-piko friend, so I thought running off is the best idea."

"I gotta admit, you are well equipped for that one…" Knuckles smirked again.

Sonic smiled. "Yeah… It's not that I dislike her, but she's been around almost as long as Tails or you. I got to see her as more of a little sister than anything else. I can't look at her… that way."

The echidna tilted his head, but didn't interrupt the hedgehog in what was becoming a weird case of revelation.

"So I just hoped she'd one day grow out of it and leave me alone," Sonic finished, tapping his right foot on the floor a few times before continuing. "I don't know what it is with Rouge now…She probably decided to go after me now…" He shrugged, glancing over at the echidna with a smug expression. "Jealous much?"

"N-NO!", Knuckles directly contradicted, cheeks turning pink.

Sonic chuckled. "Then why are you blushing, Knux?"

"I'm NOT blushing, hedgehog!", the red echidna snapped, his face adapting an even deeper shade of red. "It's just… hot in here."

"Ah, we should tell Tails to fix the air conditioning, I can feel it, too," Sonic grinned at him, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Aw, just admit it. You think she's good-looking, don't you?"

"Umm… I-"

Laughing, the hedgehog shook his head. "I'm not gonna go round telling everybody. It's not a crime and it's no surprise really. Every guy will notice her; I do, you do, I'm sure even that grudge Shadow does. Unlike what Amy seems to claim, finding someone's good-looking doesn't mean you love'em."

Knuckles awkwardly rubbed the base of his neck. "Well, probably she isn't bad-looking… But - I don't love her!"

"Okay, I get it." Sonic grinned broadly. "It really surprised me she's flirting with me lately. I always thought she was after you… or Shadow maybe."

"I hate to spoil your beliefs, but I doubt she's interested in you actually. Or anybody else for that matter." Knuckles pulled a face. "She's never been after me really I think. Even when I first met her, she was doing all the little gestures and stuff, and when I turned my back on her she got at the Master Emerald. You know, at least Amy likes you for what you are, not for what you have…"

Sonic shook his head. "Amy doesn't really like me, she likes a picture of me that lives in her head; in there I am the perfect Sonic that meets all her wishes. If I ever got with her she'd be really disappointed I'm just a normal guy that can run fast."

"I'd never expected someone with your ego to say something like that…" Knuckles laughed. "And somehow they all must see something more than that in you… Not that I could understand…"

Sonic looked up at him, ears tipping backwards slightly. "Thank you very much; you're a real friend, Knux." For a moment they stared at each other, then both laughed. "Well, I think not all of them do," Sonic continued then. "I'm rather sure when we first met, Blaze thought I was a cocky bastard."

Knuckles raised a brow in mock surprise. "I really don't know how she could have gotten that idea."

Sonic shot him a glare. "You're not helpful."

"Oh, you didn't say you wanted help." Knuckles shrugged. "What's this? Since when does Sonic the freaking hedgehog need anyone's help?"

Sonic grimaced. "Maybe I don't need it. She changed her mind, I think. We're cool."

Knuckles regarded him for a moment of thought. "Probably you're really not the luckiest guy with girls. The one you say you'd be cool with is in another dimension."

Sonic shrugged a little. "I dunno if anything else would be good. I mean, we got along great when I stayed with her or while she was in our world, we even had some moments… you know…? But I have no idea if we could even stand each other every day. Maybe we'd annoy the heck outta each other."

"That's what you tend to do to most people around you," Knuckles noticed dryly, causing Sonic's brow to wrikle again. "Somehow, Tails and me are still here though…"

Frown quickly fading again, a grin dashed over Sonic's features. "So maybe there is a girl that could stand me, too. Perhaps I better meet one, if I keep running from them people will get ideas of me going the other way…"

Knuckles stared. "You… what?"

"You know… the other way. Like in… liking you, or Tails, or maybe Shadow…?" Sonic spoke exaggerately slowly and looked at his friend as if he was mentally retarded.

For a long moment Knuckles merely blinked until he got it. "That's a really strange joke, hedgehog."

Sonic nodded. "Yeah… I don't really want to think of pictures of me wearing a pink dress or something…"

"Please, no! Stop, you're gonna give me nightmares!" Knuckled lifted his hands in front of his face as if searching protection.

Sonic shook himself, making his quills rattle. "Ugh. I'm sure I'll get some, too."

The red echidna let his hands drop back onto his lap. "Then let's just say we don't want people to think that."

"Agreed." Sonic stretched out his legs again, crossing his feet at the ankles. "Let's rather get back to the girls bit, huh?"

"Yes." Knuckles nodded in almost relief. "I guess we can deduce we're both not very lucky with them."

"Them?" Sonic cocked an eyebrow. "So far I only thought you were unlucky with Rouge. Or… hey, what about Shade?"

"What… do you mean?", Knuckles stammered, caught off guard.

"Well, I mean, you spent your life alone on an island in the sky, and then the first living female of your species comes around. I'd at least be interested." Sonic folded his arms behind his neck.

"We're not even sure if she's still working for Ix secretly." Knuckles ran a hand through his long spines, staring down on his lap.

"Aw, come on, you don't really think that now, do you?" Sonic looked him up and down.

Knuckles turned to his blue friend and slowly shook his head. "No. Not really. I… I'm just not sure if I can trust her." He paused a moment. "Do you?"

Sonic tilted his head. "A little I'd say. I don't know her very well. I know you and Tails both that well I'll trust you my everything, my life, my chilli dog provisions… whatever." For a second a grin flashed on his face and his ears twitched. "But it needs a while until you know someone that closely. She's shown us she's not an enemy. I don't think I have many reasons to mistrust her anymore." The hedgehog looked at Knuckles. "You?"

"I don't know; it's difficult." The echidna brushed one of his long dreads over his shoulder. "Like you said, she's the first living member of my kind I ever met, Sonic. I'd never thought that would happen."

Sonic nodded understandingly. "That really got to you, huh?"

"I guess so. That's why I'm not sure what to think of her. First I'm the last echidna, then there are suddenly others, then all the others are enemies, then one of them is on our side…" Knuckles shook his head. "I want to trust her. That's the reason I can't."

Sonic blinked. "Talking of logic, Knux…"

"You don't understand. It's not in the nature of my job to trust anyone. It's dangerous." Knuckles folded his arms on his chest.

"Did it harm you or that Emerald of yours trusting me and Tails?", Sonic pointed out readily.

"No… not really... But that's a completely different thing." The red echidna looked at the hedgehog again. "I'm not sure if I wish to trust her too much. I'm not sure if I'd let emotions or sensibility decide."

Sonic slowly inclined his head. "I see," he said, although he wasn't fully sure if he did. "You know what, Knux? You think too much."

"Ah yes, I think too much," the red echidna grumbled. "And what do you suggest I do instead?"

Sonic shrugged. "Wait up and see what happens. Either she'll get us all by turning us down, or she'll stay with us and help getting your Emerald back. Whatever she does, we'll find out soon what side she's on."

Knuckles studied him thoughtfully. "Sometimes I wish I could understand how you're so laid-back with things like that."

"Does it help me if I worry about stuff all day long?" Sonic shook his head. "It's easier if you don't." He stood up. "Come on."

"Where're you going?" Knuckles frowned when he stood up, too.

"My room," Sonic replied. "I got some emergency provisions in there. As the kitchen turned out to be enemy territory and the two of us had such a nice talk here, I'll share it with you. If you're interested."

Knuckles nodded. "I guess I am if you're serious about offering ME your food."

"I hope you see it as a sign of my great friendship," Sonic chuckled.

Knuckles elbowed him. "Of course, how could I misunderstand something like that?", he mocked.

"See?" Sonic grinned playfully. "Okay, you're on! The loser has to go get more if we run out of the stuff."

Knuckles dumbfoundedly stared at him. "The loser? What?"

"The one reaching my room first wins," Sonic explained casually and grinned even broader, slapping Knuckles softly across the shoulder. "Tag… you're it!"

The red echidna just stood and stared after his spiky friend as Sonic rushed off as a streak of blue. His life had been so much easier while that crazed hedgehog had been on his lengthy holiday… but Knuckles had to admit a part of him appreciated things were starting to be the way they were again. He had, and if just unconsciously, missed something about that.

His hands curled into fists as he ran after Sonic. "Oh, just wait, you –"