#spadeyque

Sonic flipped the phone open and brought it to his ear, then promptly winced and moved it away when Amy’s distressed voice came through loudly.

“Sonic! It’s a disaster!”

The blue hero sat up, instantly alert. “What is it, Amy? Eggman attacking somewhere?”

“Noooo!” wailed Amy. “I was just about to make some cookies for the party, but I realized I don’t have any sugar!”

Sonic blinked, then looked nonplussed.

“Amy,” he groused, “You really called just for that? Can’t you just make them another time?”

“But I already mixed the dry ingredients together, I can’t just let them go to waste!”

Sonic switched the phone to his other ear, digging a finger into the one that had taken the brunt of Amy’s high-pitched protest.

“Alright, alright,” he chuckled. “Hang tight, I’ll be there in a sec.”

Flipping the phone closed, Sonic hopped out of the hammock and stretched.

“Gotta go, Tails,” he announced to his little brother. “Sugar emergency.”

Tails emerged from where he’d been working behind a spare engine, and pushed his goggles up past his forehead. Though he’d only heard half of the phone conversation, he’d already worked out the situation.

“There’s an extra bag in the pantry,” said Tails. “You can take her that.”

“Nice!” Sonic grinned, glad to have been saved the trip to a grocery store. He didn’t dislike running in the cold weather, or even the snow, but he certainly didn’t prefer it.

Once he had the sugar in hand, he poked his head in the workshop to let Tails know he was heading out.

The young fox had already dived back into his work and didn’t look up, only waving a hand from behind the engine. “Be careful, Sonic. Oh!” He popped his head out again. “And bring me back a cookie!”

“Will do, bud!”

With a wink and a wave, Sonic was speeding off through the cold, in the direction of Amy’s house. __________________________________________________________

Amy Rose puffed her cheeks in frustration at herself. Forgetting to check if she had enough sugar to make sugar cookies of all things! At least Sonic was coming to her rescue.

Sure enough, just a few minutes later she heard Sonic skidding to a halt outside her door. The sound made her heart beat a little faster, and she smoothed out the front of her frilled apron and hurried to let him in.

“Yo, Amy!” Sonic said, lifting a hand in greeting. He hefted the small bag of sugar for her approval. “This enough?”

“Oh, Sonic, thank you!” Amy gushed, latching onto him with a hug.

Sonic grunted and flailed a bit under the sudden armful of Amy, but didn’t push her away. 

He glanced around at the evergreen boughs that adorned the doorframe, the lights strung up all over the place, and of course the plump tree in the corner covered with colorful ornaments.

“Wow, looking pretty festive in here!”

Amy pulled back, smiling. “Vanilla, Cream, and Cheese are coming by soon to help me with the rest. This place will be party ready in no time!”

“Well, I’ll let you get back to it,” said Sonic, preparing to leave.

“Wait!” cried Amy, gripping one of his hands. “You can stay and help?”

Sonic shrugged. “I don’t know, Ames. Baking isn’t really my thing.”

“You can just watch if you want to! I’d really enjoy the company.”

“Eh, well…”

“You can have the first taste,” Amy sing-songed.

When Sonic sighed and hung his head, she knew she had him. She squealed in delight as Sonic let her pull him into the kitchen.

At the table, Amy set to work immediately, filling a measuring cup with the delivered sugar and then mixing it together with some butter in a bowl. Just a few steps later, she had a mound of light-colored dough pressed flat with a rolling pin. She took up a cookie cutter and began pressing and wiggling it into the flattened dough.

As Sonic watched, he suddenly realized that the cut-out shapes looked a little…familiar.

“Uh, Amy…are those…me cookies? Wearing a Santa hat?”

The pink hedgehog giggled. She’d been wondering when he’d notice.

“Yep! The cookie cutter’s from a special winter release of Sonic kitchen goods! See?” She gestured to the item’s packaging, which featured a caricature of Sonic himself, wearing a red and white Santa-themed outfit.

Sonic raised an eyeridge. “Limited Edition, huh?”

Amy laughed again, but didn’t tell him that the cookie cutter had been a prize for a mail-in Sonic trivia contest.

She continued the rolling and cutting process, humming as she did so. It wasn’t long before the first batch went into the oven. When the timer beeped about ten minutes later, Amy donned some oven mitts and pulled out the freshly-baked sugar cookies.

Before she had a chance to set the tray down, Sonic reached over and grabbed one of the cookies with only his gloved hand.

“Sonic, they’re too hot, be careful!” protested Amy.

But Sonic shoved the whole cookie in his mouth without any regard for it’s temperature. He chewed bravely through the heat, only stopping once to suck in a gulp of air.

“Boys,” Amy sighed as she found a safe spot for the tray.

When he finished, Sonic’s eyes were bright with happy surprise.

“Whoa, I taste delicious!”

By the time Amy’s brain had registered his wording and indirect praise, a furious blush had already overtaken her cheeks.

Flustered, she tried to cover it by fussing with the oven mitts and reaching for a cookie herself.

“R-really? Let me try!”

She blew on it, then tried a bite from the cooled area. Her jade eyes lit up at the subtle sweetness and soft texture.

“You really are delicious!” Amy echoed Sonic’s words without thinking, and turned to the blue hedgehog with a smile, excited with her success.

Her breath caught when she noticed that Sonic was already looking at her, with not only a surprised expression but a soft redness spread across his muzzle.

A few moments stretched by as they stared at each other.

Sonic was the first to avert his eyes, reaching a hand back into his quills.

“Ah, heh, they taste just fine without any frosting. Are you gonna leave them like that?”

Amy snapped back to herself, and gave a little laugh.

“No way, silly!”

Amy quickly gathered all that she needed to begin mixing up small batches of different-colored icing. Then she filled some piping bags with each color and started decorating the little hedgehog heads – white for the eye area, a peach muzzle and inner ears, and the rest filled in with the well-known shade of blue. She did one color at a time on all of the cookies so that the colors wouldn’t mix, expertly squeezing out just enough icing for each tiny area. A carefully-placed chocolate sprinkle for each nose, and two green ones for the eyes completed the little treats.

Sonic had settled back into a chair to wait as she worked. At first he seemed bored, sitting loosely with his chin resting on his palm. By the time Amy had neared the last of the colors on the last of the cookies, he was watching closely, looking mesmerized.

“Y'know, I never realized before,” Sonic began. “I mean, for something I’m just gonna chew up in a few seconds, that’s a lot of work.”

Amy smiled softly, not looking up as she added the finishing touches on another cookie. “It doesn’t feel like work to me. I love baking, and I love trying to get all the details just right.”

The pink hedgehog was so absorbed in her decorating that she didn’t quite hear the “hmm,” from Sonic, nor notice the thoughtful look on his face.

She had nearly worked her way through all three dozen cookies, with only two left waiting for some blue icing, when the clatter of a dish suddenly caught her attention. She looked up to find Sonic had gotten up and was now rummaging around in a cabinet.

“Sonic?”

He turned, and had in his hand what he seemed to have been looking for – a small bowl similar to the ones that held the different icings.

“Uh, any of that plain white frosting left?” he asked.

Amy looked over to the large bowl where she had mixed together the original batch of icing. There was just about a cup left.

“Well, yes, but why –?”

Instead of answering, Sonic gently took the piping bag from her and put his hands on her shoulders, giving her a gentle nudge towards the kitchen doorway.

“You probably have some things to do to get ready for the party, right?” he said cheerfully. “Go ahead, I’ll handle things here!”

Amy resisted his nudge, glancing around at all the dirty bowls and spoons and general mess that accompanied a batch of baked goods. “But I have to –”

Sonic leaned around her and gave her a smile, one of the heart-meltingly charming ones. "C'mon Ames. I’m giving you a free pass here.“ 

It was true that Sonic didn’t offer himself up for cleaning services often. And she did have to freshen up and change dresses before Cream arrived…

"Well…okay,” Amy agreed. “But I won’t be long!”

A quick primp and a few outfit changes later (the red dress with the white fur trim? The green velvet pinafore? Or the candy cane print skirt? She couldn’t decide!), Amy returned to the kitchen. She was disappointed when Sonic was nowhere to be seen, but only slightly, as she’d been expecting it.

The sight of an amazingly clean kitchen almost made up for it. Even the dirty dishes had been washed.

As she drew near the table, she noticed an unusual cookie – a very pink one – sitting near all the others, with a slip of paper underneath it.

In a familiar scrawl, the note read:

“Amy - Just thought you deserved one of your own. Definitely harder than you made it look, but I hope you like it anyway! P. S. I took an extra for Tails! He loves your cookies!”

By the time she had reached the end of the note, where Sonic had signed his name alongside a little doodle of his head, Amy’s face felt warm with another blush.

She couldn’t help but smile at the cookie Sonic had decorated. The spiky, Sonic-style quills had been broken off and rearranged more closely around the face, resembling her own quillstyle. The icing on them was a rosy pink beneath the jaunty red holiday hat.

Some of the colors were smudged together and the eye sprinkles were a little uneven (not to mention the edible glitter that Sonic had somehow found and sprinkled generously), giving the cookie the appearance of something Cream might have decorated by herself, but Amy’s heart couldn’t have been happier.

Sonic had made something just for her.

On a whim, she took one of the Sonic cookies and set it close to the Amy one, so that their little sprinkle noses were touching.

There, she thought. Perfect.