Legal Disclaimer: I do not own Sonic the Hedgehog or any of its associated characters, I do not claim ownership of Sonic the Hedgehog or any of its associated characters, nor am I monetizing this story or profiting from its publication on feliciarondo.com or Archive of Our Own. The Sonic the Hedgehog franchise is created and owned by SEGA Sammy Holdings Inc. All rights of Sonic the Hedgehog belong to SEGA Sammy Holdings Inc.
Revealing - Chapter 1
Written by Felicia Rondo, Edited by Cluster, Rated 18+, Published: 8/20/2023
Summary: We rejoin Whisper as she tries to figure out what to wear for her date with Tangle, which is only made more difficult when her anxieties threaten to make going out at all seem impossible. Meanwhile, Tangle waits for her love at the movie theater and chats with Amy about her relationship with Whisper!
Commission for qqHoneydew, follow-up to Living on the Sidelines.
Contains: Anxiety, Recovery, Girl Talk, and Tangle’s Poofy Fluff!
There she was - staring at her dresser, clock ticking closer and closer to 5 o’clock with each passing moment, with nothing standing in between her and what was probably going to be a lovely night out with Tangle. Her wisps rested peacefully in their capsules, her lemur lover was miles away with sky-high hopes for their evening… but, unfortunately for Whisper, her anxiety had arrived just in time to stop her in her tracks.
An unexpected chat with Rouge had given her a little more confidence, but it seemed to wither away after she left the bat’s vicinity. In the privacy of her room, Whisper felt tempted to withdraw from the outing altogether. Tangle would understand, she thought…
But then, there it was. Glowing in the darkness of her mind, casting away the shadows of anxiety, was a picture of Tangle - beaming at her, brimming with adoration for her, with eyes that seemed to reflect back out into the world an unbreakable optimism that couldn’t be denied. When she looked at Tangle, she saw everything she wanted in her life. In the reflection of herself in the lemur’s eyes, she could see a wolf that was capable of more than she thought.
That settled it. She couldn’t back out now - not because she was trapped, but because she didn’t want to.
With renewed determination, Whisper went and picked out her clothes, scouring her dresser and closet for any and all options. Each move she made all worked toward finding that smile on her lover’s face once again. When she looked back in the mirror, she saw a girl that… didn’t manage to put together a very good outfit to start with, but who wouldn’t give up now.
One after another, taking each neatly-folded article of clothing out to see how they worked with one another, Whisper searched for the look that showed what she wanted Tangle to see in her. Someone who wasn’t going to let her worries come between them, or get in the way of being the girlfriend she wanted to be for her.
At the same time, however, another thought had snuck its way into the back of her mind. Something else that Rouge had told her before they went their separate ways, one last word of advice she imparted upon the wolf in need,
“Make sure you don’t cover up too much skin! She knows what you’ve got, but a reminder never hurt a gal!”
Its echo was soft at first, reverberating under her radar, but its effect made itself apparent. Before she knew it, Whisper looked to the mirror and found herself wearing a dress that she’d forgotten she even owned.
Her shoulders were bare, and so too was much more of her bust than she ever allowed. The slit as well was placed high enough to show a stunning amount of leg. When did she ever get this? Was it this revealing back then? Regardless, it was a very… unique experience, seeing herself in the dress.
Almost automatically, Whisper wanted to reject it. To put it away somewhere she wouldn’t accidentally find it again, but then she paused.
Why was she so afraid? What would be so wrong with Tangle seeing her in this dress? Her girlfriend had already seen her naked, after all, so what was so different about this?
Letting out a sigh, Whisper sat down on the edge of her bed, resting her hand on her lap and feeling the fabric on her skin. It was… kind of glamorous, in a way nothing else in her wardrobe really matched. Usually whatever she wore was strictly-utilitarian, something to… almost hide in. Invariably, whatever she wore was rather ambivalent to her body.
This, however, was a fair bit more than ambivalent. If anything, it accentuated her - made her look beautiful… Even a little…
Whisper blushed. ‘Sexy’ was… not a word she used a lot, much less on herself, but it did pop in her head nonetheless.
At the heart of it, what Whisper wanted most from that evening was to stop hiding. To let down the walls she put up around her heart, if only just to let Tangle in closer. She didn’t think that necessarily had anything to do with her body, or what she wore, but… she gave herself another look in the mirror, now that the shock had worn off, and… it felt right.
After taking a deep breath, Whisper stood back up. There was no use stalling it any further - she found the perfect outfit, and she was as ready as she would ever be to meet Tangle at the theater. Tangle was gonna see her, revealing dress and all, and they were gonna have a wonderful time at… whichever movie Tangle was taking them to see, Whisper wasn’t sure based on the description she got.
How Whisper was going to work up the nerve to ask for what she wanted after the movie was over? That was something she was going to need to figure out on the way…
Ahh, the theater. Home of popcorn, films of all kinds, and even more popcorn! Of all the stages Tangle had set foot in, theaters might have been the most exciting - for, at a theater, the possibilities were endless. There was nowhere she couldn’t go, no place she couldn’t be whisked away to on the big screen.
There she was, standing by with two tickets in hand for Only You, waiting for her date. Whisper would arrive soon and, with any luck, Tangle wouldn’t end up putting her foot in her mouth. Again.
It was all she ever wanted for a long while, but actually being Whisper’s girlfriend wasn’t always the easiest thing in the world for Tangle. One minute everything would be fine, and the next she’d say the wrong thing and suddenly it was like she was falling from the top of a tree - and hitting every branch on the way down.
… Maybe that metaphor had a little more to do with personal experience than she would’ve liked to admit, but she didn’t have to admit it and Jewel probably wouldn’t tell anyone about all those times either!
Nonetheless, Tangle never quit trying in their relationship. Trying to make it positive for Whisper, trying to get closer, and just trying to be good for her. If she managed that, maybe she was doing something right.
“Tangle?” came a friendly, girly voice. When Tangle turned, she found Amy Rose a few feet away - standing idly by with two tickets of her own!
“Amy!” Tangle replied, in gratitude to the girl rescuing her from the fiendish clutches of boredom, rushing over to her and asking, “Whatcha doing? Are you here to see Only You too??”
“O-oh! Haha, no, not me!” Amy answered, blushing bisexually as she briefly considered the idea of going to see a movie where the girls kiss each other, “I’m actually here to see Love Dusk with Sonic!… If he ever gets here!”
“Love Dusk? What, did you find some embarrassing baby pictures of him or something?” Tangle giggled, tickled by the very idea of a guy like Sonic sitting through the sequel to the world’s sappiest chick flick, “Seriously, how’d you ever get him to agree to see a movie like that?”
“You’d be surprised!” replied Amy, “I actually didn’t have to do anything - he was really excited when I brought up the movie,” that last part firmly hooking Tangle, she continued, “it turns out he really liked the first one! I had no idea, I was embarrassed to even mention I was looking forward to the new one, so when he lit up and practically begged to come with me when I saw it…” she sighed, dreamily.
“I guess you never know what people are into,” the hedgehog gal shrugged, “I’m sure he’ll at least make it here before the opening credits are finished, I just know he’s probably gonna get himself side-tracked on the way here.”
“‘Sounds like you’ve got him pegged!” Tangle commented, before adding when Amy’s eyes widened, “I mean, that you know him real good and stuff!” She thought it was a pretty ordinary thing to say, unsure why it got that reaction out of the other girl.
“No no, yeah, that makes much more sense! Don’t know what I was thinking!” Amy laughed, doing her best to move on as casually and unsuspiciously as possible, “We um… it wasn’t always like this, actually…
“A while ago, I was kind of more his fangirl than a friend,” she admitted, “but we kept spending time together, and… well, walls came down! I stopped seeing him as some big hero and started seeing him for who he is, and he let himself be a little more vulnerable with me!”
No matter how many times she heard one, love stories always made Tangle’s heart feel so full. The way people could get to know each other, becoming closer over time until they could almost know what each other were thinking even without saying anything… it was one of those quiet beauties of the world that words could never quite do justice to.
“Th-that’s… so… CUTE!” Tangle exclaimed, a little too loudly, as her eyes watered, “I love that for both of you so much!”
“H-hehe! Everyone’s got a story!” Amy replied, darting her eyes around embarrassedly and sighing in relief as the few strangers who turned to look at them moved on shortly after, “What’s you and Whisper’s, anyway? If you don’t mind sharing, I mean,” she inquired.
“Ohh it’s nothing, we don’t really have a storyyy,” Tangle laughed, before taking a deep breath…
“So it all started back when Eggman was doing a bunch of evil stuff, but then it wasn’t Eggman because Eggman wasn’t Eggman, because Eggman was Metal Sonic! So we all got on a plane or something and it was the coolest moment of my life ‘cause here I’d been hearing all about these super cool adventures but like, now I was in it!!! So I’m there in the plane or whatever, playing cards with the least-intimidatingly cool people I could find—Knuckles was also there, but he was Commander Knuckles because it was before he disbanded the Resistance really suddenly, and he was really grumpy! But then I noticed there was this really cute girl sitting in the corner!!!”
“Wh-Whisper, right?” Amy asked, as Tangle panted from speaking for so long on a single breath.
“Right… Whisper…” the lemur gasped, making a mental note to take more breaths as she told the story.
“So I excused myself from the really boring card game I was totally gonna win anyway, and went to go check on the super cute girl that no one introduced me to! No one was even hanging out with her, she was just sitting there all alone!
“I say, hey, I’m Tangle! And I ask her, ‘you doing okay? But she doesn’t really say anything, which tells me something!” declared Tangle.
“That she didn’t wanna talk…?” Amy asked.
“That she was doing really badly, obviously!” Tangle answered, “So I take a seat next to her and tell her that I can keep her company! She sounded like she was gonna start to say something, but then she stopped… and then she told me her name was Whisper!”
“Wait…” replied Amy, “so you just went up to her, sat down next to her, and she… didn’t walk away or tell you to leave her alone?”
“Now why would she go and do a thing like that?” Tangle laughed, “She was lonely!”
Amy had to laugh too… but for very different reasons.
“That’s… that’s so funny,” Amy said, as her laughter died down, “I remember that night - it was the first night I met Whisper. Sonic and Silver had met up with her earlier and, well, Sonic let me know that she wasn’t really… great, with people, and said that giving her space would probably be for the best.”
“Is that why no one was hanging out with her?” asked Tangle, “I guess that makes some sense…” she scratched her head, pausing to think about it, “but, like, something I’ve noticed with Whisper is that she really doesn’t do well on her own. She gets in her head, starts worrying about things that haven’t happened yet, and… she can handle it herself sometimes, but having someone to back her up really helps her.”
“I guess that’s true of a lot of people,” Amy smiled, glancing at the people around them, “I know Sonic’s spent lots of time by himself on whatever adventures he gets up to, but being on your own definitely isn’t for everyone…”
“Not for me, that’s for sure!” Tangle agreed, “Before Whisper, Sonic and the other guys were there to make sure I didn’t get too in over my head when I was starting out! Before that, Jewel was always there to help me out of all sorts of situations! Wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I was all by my lonesome!”
“I’m glad you met Whisper, then!” Amy giggled, finding the two’s story absolutely irresistible, “And glad Whisper met you! By the sound of it, I think you’ve been really good for her.”
“Hehe, that’s the hope!” replied Tangle, her confidence faltering slightly, “It’s definitely taken me a lot of time to figure out how to be more, uh… sensitive, when she needs that! Lots of moments where I probably should’ve kept my mouth shut where I definitely… didn’t…
“Sometimes things go sideways and it takes a bit for us to get back from it, even when neither of us are really angry at each other,” she admitted, “so… here I am, taking her out to see a movie and hoping it helps and that she doesn’t, uh… doesn’t just withdraw more until she never speaks to me again, haha…”
“Ohh don’t say that!” Amy smiled, putting her hand on Tangle’s shoulder, “Going out and doing something together is a great idea! The most important thing in any relationship is that you love and care about each other, and you’ve definitely got that covered!”
“Yeah, I love Whisper! She’s the best!” Tangle exclaimed, “In fact, gosh, there was this one time where I saw Whisper and she looked so pretty that I just went like… like…” she then placed both her hands on her chest, before pushing her hands back out and making a ‘bwoosh!’ sound.
Amy paused at that, silently looking at the other girl puzzlingly. When Tangle repeated the gesture, it only made Amy squint back at her.
“Your… boobs exploded?” Amy questioned.
“What? No!” Tangle replied, “Not my boobs…” she cupped her chest, as though her breasts were in danger at just the thought, “It’s like, with the fluff I got here on my chest, it sorta… like…”
She trailed off, her brain stubbornly withholding the words from her right when she needed them. No matter how far she reached, the things Whisper made her do eluded words. Love was like that.
“Hey Tangle…” came the familiarly-soft sound of Whisper’s voice, drawing the two girls’ attention toward her. She looked as though she had been poured into her dress - filling it so stunningly that, when Tangle laid eyes on her, the fluff of her chest puffed out in just the adorable way it had before.
“Ohh…” Amy reacted, finally understanding.
“H-hey, Whisper!” replied Tangle, hoping she wasn’t blushing too hard, “Are ya ready to see… t-to… see…” her eyes drifted downward from Whisper’s face, before she forcibly ripped her attention away from her girlfriend’s chest to the tickets in her hand, “Only You! Only You, that’s what we’re watching!”
Then, over the speakers in the lobby, came a very steady voice announcing, “Now seating for 5 o’clock showing of Only You - please hand your tickets to the usher and head to the designated room.” Tangle looked up and around the theater, but turned to look back at Whisper when she heard the girl let out a deep breath.
“I’m ready,” Whisper told Tangle, before grabbing her arm and holding onto it - her bust happening to bunch up against her in such a way that, while Whisper didn’t seem to think much of it, was very hard for Tangle not to notice. At that point, the lemur’s face was about as red as it got that time she stuffed a dozen chili peppers in her mouth at once.
Without further ado, they left the lobby. Amy wished the two a good time, giving Tangle a thumbs-up and a wink when she turned to look back at her. Tangle hoped it would be a good time for Whisper, and that she’d be able to pay any attention to it while Whisper was looking as amazing as she was. Whisper, meanwhile, had other things on her mind.
This was the easy part, she knew, but every step she took past it seemed to give her the confidence she needed to get to the rest of it. That night had a lot more in store for the two of them than Tangle realized, and… to her surprise, Whisper found herself looking forward to revealing it to her.
To Be Concluded…
Comment on Bluesky!