Spooky

Chapter 50

-Shadow's POV-

February slides by with nothing interesting at all. My days are spent in school, then either with friends out and about or, more commonly, in the dorm room with Scourge. In March, though, track practices begin, and I find myself outdoors a lot more—sitting in the bleachers holding Scourge's water bottle. And maybe watching him a little bit too closely, if I'm honest, partly out of worry and partly... well, he looks pretty nice in the uniform. The school colours aren't half bad on him.

By now, we may as well be out. I doubt anybody hasn't figured out that we're dating. It hasn't changed my life a lot, to be honest, but then again, people barely spoke to me beforehand, so if anyone's opinion has changed, I am blissfully unaware. Though, now people in Sonic's circle of friends will flash a friendly smile at me or give me an appreciative nod as they walk by, and it feels less... hostile around me in the halls now. It's not like everything's just pushing up daisies suddenly, but, things are a little better sometimes. Certainly easier than I'd figured it'd be. Hell, Jet even came to me with an awkward and uncomfortable apology, seemingly prompted by Sonic, or maybe even Wave—something I kinda wish hadn't happened, since I really have no interest in talking to him, but hey. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. I'm more glad he's managed to grow as a person in so short a time, though I didn't really need an announcement about it.

On the subject of personal improvements—Scourge and Sonic seem to be getting along absolutely famously. Any tension and discomfort they'd had before is just...gone. And I'm happy for them. In fact, Scourge seems to be getting along better with just about everyone. It's actually kinda funny to think about; shortly after we started dating, he just became, for lack of a better phrase, completely declawed. Picking fewer fights, less harassment of his peers, et cetera. It was the sort of thing I never really noticed before, but now so many things have changed that I can't help but notice. Maybe it's just because we're almost seniors, but, most of my classmates seem to have mellowed out quite a lot. I certainly have. During that horrible month of my breakdown I just completely stopped caring about my grades, and yet, they've barely fallen; lately I've been wondering why, exactly, I'm even still going to high school when I know college isn't really in the cards for me. Then again, I remind myself, if I didn't keep going, I wouldn't be sitting here now, watching my boyfriend run in circles. And I guess a high school diploma is better than nothing.

"Stripes!" Scourge's lovely voice snaps me back to reality, and I perk up. He's jogging toward the bleachers, panting, and I hop to my feet, leaning over the railing to extend his water toward him. "How're you doin'?" He hops up, climbing a bit, holding himself up with a lower railing, and he grins up at me.

"I'm not the one running around," I reply with amusement as he takes the water from me, looping his arm around the railing to keep himself from falling off. "I should be asking you that."

He rips the cap off the bottle. "True, but, you're sitting in the sun."

He leans back and guzzles half the bottle as I respond, "It's fine. It's actually pretty nice out if you're just sitting around."

Scourge sighs happily as he lowers the bottle, pausing to wipe his mouth off with his arm before saying, "Well, that's good. There's only maybe thirty minutes left of practice," he screws the cap back on with a bit of difficulty, then passes it back to me. "What d'you wanna do after that?"

I shrug. "It's up to you. We'll do whatever you feel up to doing."

He smirks, then opens his mouth to say something, but abruptly the coach yells at him, "Scourge! Quit flirting and get on over here!"

Immediately he hops down, taking off towards the group. I grin after him, amused and oddly happy. His coach, Mr. Makn'mara, has been the kindest of all the staff (most of the rest are just apathetic, to be fair) about our relationship, treating us no differently than anybody else. He doesn't begrudge me sitting out, either—he's not the type to insist that only athletes (and maybe chaperones) attend practices. So he's allowed me to sit on the bleachers, where I'm sometimes joined by Knuckles or Wave, and, on even rarer occasions, Amy. Track isn't really a big-name sport here, so there's really not a lot of people here, but sometimes Wave cheers Jet on, and of course Knuckles and Amy are pretty close to Sonic. Through that, I've gotten pretty close to them, as well, and thanks to that closeness, I've been able to do my absolute best to nudge Amy into asking Rouge out on a date. I consider it repayment for the fact that Rouge nudged Scourge and I together, to be honest.