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Outcasts in Need

Part 3

For EdgeofObsidian

By Draconicon

Edge wanted to visit the Knothole Glade library as soon as it opened, but he knew better than to do that. Everyone visited it when it first opened, and there were numerous surges through the day when more and more of the populace popped in to get whatever they were interested in at the moment. If he just showed up randomly, or worse, during one of those surges, then they were going to spot him and panic. They'd run out of the building, not caring about themselves, and they'd get hurt. And that was the best-case scenario. They might decide to chase him out, and the librarians would probably help them. The boss of the library seemed to have taken a dislike to him since the last time he was there and several people had damaged the books in their urgent need to flee the building.

It hadn't been his fault, but the fox had blamed him regardless. Ever since, he'd been very careful about getting in, making sure that he snuck in without anyone seeing him. He considered it part of his training, these days, though it wasn't fun to do it that way.

So, it was around noon, about the time that people were leaving the library for lunch or too tired from the morning to be paying attention, when he finally arrived at the tree. He hesitated for a moment, waiting at the door for someone else to open it, only to dart in as soon as a rabbit girl opened it. She paused as he slipped by, turning and looking around her for whoever it was that had passed by, but the black hedgehog had already darted out of sight.

He had slipped from the ground floor up the stairs, and was buried amidst the self-help books within two minutes. Nobody had seen him enter the building, nobody had seen him slide in between the two shelves that held all the books on the subject that the library had. He wrapped his scarf around him a bit tighter, covering the spines along the back of his neck that all hedgehogs had, trying to keep it from being obvious just who he was.

After all, the longer that he had to read, the more time that he had to think about what he was absorbing. Other people could check the books out, but him? He'd be lucky if he could stay for an hour to read.

Thankfully, he was a quick reader. He picked out three books on the subject of meeting people and socializing, then climbed to the top of the bookcases, crossing his legs and reading through the first one. He could sometimes be spotted doing this, but since most people looked up - a fact that Espio had taught him and he had learned to be pretty accurate - he was better up here than he was hiding in one of the alcoves.

The black hedgehog was halfway through the first chapter when he heard a whimper from below. He paused, leaning over the side to see what was going on.

Just under him was a brown-furred bat, one that was leaning back against the shelves. An older woman, a green hedgehog in a blue dress, was looming over the younger girl.

"And what in the world are you doing back here, hmm? Stupid, lazy girl. I told your boss that I would not accept anything less than your full dismissal."

"I'm - I'm sorry, but I do work here still. I'm just trying to sort the books."

"Well, you aren't doing a very good job of it, are you? Here, let me 'help' you."

And with that, the hedgehog woman swept her hand through the nearest bookshelf, knocking no less than three dozen tomes to the floor. Several nearly crushed the bat's feet, too, landing all around her.

Edge's face tilted into a frown as he slowly closed his book, making it as quiet as he possibly could. He leaned over the edge of the bookshelf, the flickering feeling of electricity already coursing through his veins -

No, no, that's Abyss. He does it in anger. I do it for justice. For good.

Edge shook his head, fighting the urge to just go all thunderstorm on the green hedgehog woman, but he knew better than to feed the entity that sort of negativity. That level of anger would be like a siren call for the destructive spirit, and he wasn't going to just hand Abyss that level of access to himself again.

Instead, he waited, his legs crossed, his hands upturned on his knees. If they did much more -

"See? Now you can actually do some work, piggy-girl. Time for you to start putting yourself to some use, rather than lazing about doing nothing."

The anger was definitely growing at this point, and Edge would have been growling if he had the chance to make more than the tiniest noises as the Abyss-Holder. He clenched his hands, the soft hum of electricity whirring between his fingers starting to rise. Neither of the females had noticed just yet, but, well, it was only a matter of time.

The bat had knelt down, starting to pick up the books, only for the hedgehog to grab her by the hair, yanking her back up.

"Did I say you could ignore me?!"

"AH! I-I'm sorry!"

"Look at me when I'm talking to you! Stupid girl!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just wanted to clean up the mess. The books -"

"Do you know who I am? I could really get you fired this time. Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

And then, the green hedgehog yanked a book off the shelf, pulling it over her head like it was some sort of brick rather than a book. And that? That was all that Edge needed to justify what he did next.

He brought his hands together in a silent clap, his pointer fingers pressed together and pointed out like the barrel of a gun. The lightning charged between the digits, and when he 'pulled the trigger' with his middle fingers, it fired.

BZZZZT!

It was no louder than a horsefly, buzzing, but not piercing. The lightning blast took the hedgehog woman right in the wrist, setting her nerves to jerking and spasming. She yelped, dropping the book and grabbing her other arm, squeezing it as her fingers twitched and clenched like her hand had been possessed.

"What on earth?!"

He'd hoped that the bat girl would take the time to get running, to find a way out of there, but instead, she knelt down and started picking up the books again. He cocked his head to the side, watching her as she dedicatedly gathered the various tomes from the floor, collecting them in a pile, organizing them as she went.

There weren't even tears on her face, either of rage or of humiliation. She was holding herself together, and doing it better than the average person would have.

"What - what is this, girl?!"

"I don't know. I'm stupid, remember?" the bat muttered.

"What was that?!"

"I don't know, ma'am. But...but this is a library, and we do need to keep quiet in here."

"You -"

"Ma'am."

Edge recognized the harder tone of a security officer, and immediately flattened himself against the top of the bookcase. He could feel the electrical pulses of the newcomer, a male, and he could hear the hedgehog being told that she was violating library rules with all her shouting. That was something, at least, even if it wasn't as good for the bat as having the other woman completely banned from the library.

People are bad.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Edge shook his head. No. There were individuals that were bad. There were a lot of good people, too. Just a lot of scary ones, a lot of mean ones that made the good people disappear. A lot of ones that made people like him want to disappear, too.

He thought of how it would have gone if he'd been the one taking the screaming and the hitting down there. Edge didn't know if he would have been able to maintain his self-control through it the way that the bat girl did, and he didn't know if he would have been able to stay 'good.' Either his anxiety or his anger would have pulled at Abyss, and then...

Well, then they would have had a serious test to measure just how much control he had.

But it was handled, he told himself. It was handled, and there were no more worries about what was going to happen to the bat girl. He had been a good hero, and he didn't even have to worry about being exposed.

And now, I can get back to reading and figuring out my own problems.

The black hedgehog waited until he could feel the female hedgehog and the security guard walking away, and then sat up to keep reading. Maybe there was something in these books that would give him a clue as to how to be a person rather than just a hero.

Paige was still shaking on the inside as she watched the horrible woman being led away. She had been sure that her head was going to be caved in when the other lady had pulled that book off the shelf and held it in the air, and she still wasn't sure if she was more worried about the damage that the book would have taken or the injury that it would have given her. It was hard to be sure about much of anything right at that point.

She looked at the book on the ground, slowly picking it up. It was a massive tome, one that had to be over a thousand pages, leather bound and hard-backed. If that had come down on her head, she would have needed stitches, at best, and possibly have been in a coma, at worst. She shivered, slowly putting it back onto the shelf.

Then the shakes started. Paige clenched her hand tightly, pressing it against the shelf as she felt the aftershocks of her fear running through her again, the insults shouting through the back of her skull.

Piggy.

Lazy.

STUPID.

The last one hurt as much as the others combined, and she bit her lip to keep the little whimper inside. She wasn't going to break down again, not at work, and if she had to do it at work, not in public. She could run to the employee restroom and take care of herself there if she really had to.

And besides, that book by the Sisterhood of the Sole had said that tears were not good in public. It only drew in those that wanted to make her cry more.

She took a deep breath, letting it out, then leaned her head against one of the books. As if she was drawing strength from the leather cover, she rubbed it against her forehead until the shakes were done, and then put it back on the shelf, giving it an appreciative squeeze along the spine.

I'm going to be okay. It's done. She's...she's gone.

Though it had been very strange. For a half-second, she'd sworn that she'd seen something arcing from the ceiling towards the hedgehog's wrist, almost like a bolt of lightning in a straight line. That was impossible, though. There was no way that lightning could shoot through the air inside of a building, could it?

Unless...

Unless the Abyss-Holder was around. It was well-known that he could shoot electricity from his fingers, that he could use the power of lightning as a weapon against those that he deemed his enemies. She had seen the news broadcasts, watched as they tried to turn it into an argument that Abyss was always on the edge of getting free again, that the Abyss-Holder was not working out, that the lightning was just the first sign of the impending escape.

She didn't see it that way. If anything, she felt that the lightning was a way for the Abyss-Holder to keep Abyss from getting too strong. The more lightning he used, the less that Abyss had to fight with when they were struggling over the cage.

Or at least, that was the story she told herself.

Is he...here?

If he was, he'd better not get spotted. All the other librarians and librarian assistants were under direct orders from their boss to get him out if he was ever spotted. He wasn't allowed inside the tree, and for stupid reasons.

But if he was here...

Paige paused as she collected the rest of the books from the floor, hugging one book to her chest. If he was here, that meant that he had been a hero for her. He had saved her, and that...that deserved some special thanks. And she hoped that she could find some way to do it. She knew what some girls would have done for their dashing hero, but...

Well, she wasn't pretty, and you needed to be pretty for that to be a reward, didn't you?

Sighing, she pulled the rest of the books off the floor and put them back on the shelf, delicately pushing them into place before stepping back to examine her work. She smiled to herself, seeing that they were all even, all in a row, and she patted herself on the back.

"Good Paige," she muttered, walking along the aisle towards the return box. She probably had plenty of work waiting for her down there.

#

Paige.

He'd heard the name, and he didn't know how to feel about that. It wasn't like he was trying to spy on her, but Edge couldn't help but be fascinated with the other girl. Not in a lovelorn way like he had seen other guys feel, but more like how he felt when he was around his mentor, or around Sonic, or the other Freedom Fighters that put so much effort in and were so very exceptional.

It was admiration, but also mixed in with it, curiosity. He had been curious why someone that was so otherwise mundane had shown more strength than he thought he could have done in the face of that sort of abuse. He was curious who she was, what she was like, what sort of person she was. He wanted to know what gave her that strength, and what sort of strength he might be able to learn from her.

It was all so new to him, and he didn't know what to do about it.

So, he listened. He listened, he watched, and - a little shamefully - he followed her. Darting over the different bookshelves on silent feet, he studied the bat, but more than that, he also...

Well, he was doing what he had been doing in the bushes around the swimming hole. There was a part of him that was staring at her for other reasons, taking her in, feeling curious about her in a way that he hadn't been with the random women around the water. There was something...different this time.

And it wasn't that she was showing more skin. For that matter, she was more wrapped up than a pig in a blanket, her top almost like a giant hoodie for her to get lost in, and her pants were loose enough to hide her shape in them. She wore boots rather than sandals or other loose footwear, hiding something, he imagined.

And yet, for all that, he found himself more curious and more willing to stare at her than he had anyone else. It took him a while to figure out that it was because he knew something about her, knew something beyond her appearance, and that, in turn, made him interested in learning more.

It was easy to track her. She had a very distinct electro-signature, and it was constantly running on high. Anxiety, he wondered? Or something a little more exciting, a little less painful to deal with?

He was turning into a stalker, and it embarrassed him as he flitted through the library on her heels, watching her from behind. Despite himself, he couldn't shake the fascination that he had for the strong-willed bat, and he kept wondering just what she might do next.

Of course, being so curious was a danger to himself, and he eventually slipped up.

They were coming to the children's section of the library, and he landed just a bit wrong on the next bookshelf. He slipped, not quite to the point of falling, but enough to make a little scuttle-clutter sound on the top of the shelf, enough to catch attention.

And the bat was definitely paying attention.

Paige whipped her head around, her eyes going wide as she saw the black-furred hedgehog standing over her. He was already fumbling at his scarf, trying to cover his head and his spines along the back of his neck, but it was too late. She knew it was him.

The Abyss-Holder.

Yet, for all that she knew that it was him, she could see that he was completely different to how he looked on TV. He wasn't posed in some threatening fashion, nor was he looming over the battlefield the way that so many cameras showed him. If anything, he looked completely embarrassed at having been caught, his face bright-red under the scarf, his eyes looking around desperately for an escape route.

And her first thought was just as stupid.

"Get down from there!" she hissed quietly. "Nobody's allowed on the top of the shelves; you'll get them dirty!"

It was such a stupid thing to say, and she realized it as soon as the whispered words were out of her mouth, but there was no taking them back. She slapped a hand over her face, but when she brought it back down again, he was on the ground. Standing there. In front of her.

...What the hell do I do now?

She stared straight at him, and he stared straight back. Her glasses were steaming up from the red on her cheeks, and she honestly didn't know what to do now. She had the Abyss-Holder - no, no, he was a person and -

Oh god, if someone saw her with him -

"Come with me."

She was on autopilot, pulling his scarf over his head, hiding him in a wrap, and even going so far as to twist some of the scarf down and around his arm, pulling it up as if it was injured. If anyone looked at them, she'd just look like someone taking an injured patron to the medical wing of the library. It was nothing. Nothing at all.

None of her coworkers bothered looking up as she crossed the main floor of the library tree, and the black hedgehog didn't do anything to fight her. If anything, he as passive and helpful as he could be, not at all the sort of assertive warrior that the news tried to paint him as.

What other stories aren't true?

She didn't know, but it was getting rather fascinating to find out in its own weird way.

Finding an empty reading room, she stepped inside and pulled him with her, clicking the door shut and making sure that it was firmly locked. She heaved a sigh of relief, leaning against it and shaking her head. That should give them a bit of time to sort things out, and that would give her the chance to...

To...

...Well, I really didn't think this one through, did I?

The bat wrung her hands out a bit, shaking her head before looking up at the hedgehog again. He was staring at her, and he hadn't even said a word. All he did was look her right in the eye, without saying anything else. He just...stared.

Is he...is he judging me? Does he think I'm...

Her hands went from wringing themselves out to wanting to wrap around her middle, to hide herself again, to just disappear.

_Ugly.

Fat.

Lazy.

Stupid!_

"I...um..." She had to talk. Had to do something. "What's your name?"

His name?

Edge blinked at the question, slowly undoing the scarf around his arm and his head. When he'd been hustled off toward a side room, he had expected some weirdness, something that he'd need to apologize for, but he hadn't been expecting something like that. Just his name?

He gestured at her, writing the letter 'Y' in the air. She blinked, no longer seeming to shrink in on herself, looking puzzled for a moment before -

"Oh, why. That's what you mean."

He nodded.

"...Can you talk? Are you..." She pointed at her throat. "Are you mute?"

He pointed at his throat and nodded.

"Oh. Um. Do you want some paper, or...do you know sign language?"

The hedgehog blushed a bit. He made a gesture about the size of a piece of paper, and then doodled in the air. The bat nodded, humming to herself as she went to the side of the room, rustling through some of the older books and the stacks of note paper around.

It was weird. As soon as she had something to be doing, she seemed to be okay, but the minute that she didn't have some task, she started to fall all to pieces. It was like the work was a giant distraction to her, something to do that kept her from thinking about something else.

Edge looked her over again, his eyes falling down to her boots. He wondered why she bothered wearing those, and then blushed as he realized just how much he'd like to take them off, how much he'd like to see what was underneath. He was so used to shoes that had some sort of defining feature, or some way of hugging a foot, or some 'sole' underneath that seeing something like this almost gave him a mystery boner just from the lack of anything.

She returned with a piece of paper, and he made sure to look at her face. JUST her face.

"So, um...could you tell me your name?" the bat - Paige - asked. "I just hear 'Abyss-Holder' this and 'Abyss-Holder' that on the news...I want to hear your name..."

He nodded, taking the pen and writing down the word 'Edge'. Passing it back, she cocked her head to the side, then smiled.

"Thank you, Edge. You're...you're a person, not a prison. I...just wanted to make sure that you heard someone say that."

It struck a chord for him, and he blushed again, rubbing the back of his head. It wasn't quite a nervous tic, more a thing that he did when he was a bit out of his depth. The pressure felt good.

As he did, she reached over, petting the back of his head. There was something in that touch that immediately made him both stiffen up and go limp, leaning forward with a happy little shudder running down his spine.

Of course, it didn't last for long. Paige yanked her hand back and started apologizing almost right off the bat.

"Sorry, sorry. Should I not do that?"

With a shaky hand, he wrote something down.

No, no, it's okay. I just...nobody's done that before.

"Oh. Um...is it a bad thing?"

No, it's good, just...new.

"Ah, right. Um...I..." She rubbed the back of her head, now, and he wondered if he should reach out and do the same thing. Before he could decide, she sat down. "I...I know that it was you that saved me, earlier."

I just...I was doing the right thing. I wanted to do it earlier, but...

"It doesn't matter. You still saved me. And I want to do something for you. I just..."

Edge honestly didn't understand what was happening. He was as lost as he had ever been, particularly with the fact that someone wanted to do something for him after he had saved them. The idea that anyone was that grateful just didn't enter into his understanding of the world, and when it came right down to it, he didn't expect it.

He was a hero. He was useful. You didn't thank something that was useful for doing what it was supposed to do. It hadn't happened when he had first joined the Freedom Fighters when he immigrated to Mobius, nor had it happened when he had served, or when he had come back and served again.

And here he was, standing in the middle of the library, with a very shy bat trying to offer him something when it had been such a minor thing...

Except...was it? Really?

Paige was completely embarrassed as she tried to fall back on what the book had said. It had been...well, rather explicit about the sort of things that men enjoyed when a confident woman had the power to bring them about, but her own worries, her fears, her anxieties about herself and everything else, told her that this was the stupidest idea in the world. She should just leave it at a 'thank you', and then go on with her day.

But he had never been thanked. She had seen the news, saw the way that people treated him, remembered what her boss had said if he ever came up in conversation. She was supposed to vilify him, hate him, just like everyone else. He had to deal with that every day. How was he supposed to stay good if everyone else always told him that he was bad?

How was he supposed to feel appreciated if nobody did anything?

She had to make up for that, and the book said that guys liked this. She just hoped that she didn't start making him hate her, or regret saving her.

Paige reached for the ties of her boots, slowly pulling at the knots. The minute the rasp of a shoelace on a shoelace filled the air, Edge stiffened again, his eyes widening over the top of his scarf.

Oh god, he hates it. The book's wrong. I'm going to...

Yet, she'd already made the decision, and her body was moving on autopilot. Even as her cheeks flared with heat, she undid the knot on one bootlace, and then pulled it off. The sock she wore under it was damp, damp and wet and...sweat...and...not feminine at all. Her cheeks burned all the hotter, but she kept moving, going through the motions the book mentioned, pointing her foot forward across the table, curling her toes and feeling the fabric of the sock pressing against her toes, against the ball of her foot, soaked to her skin and probably transparent in those areas.

She could smell her own scent, and she bit off the whimper as she said what the book said she should say.

"I will give you the thanks of the sole. Please...indulge...if you want..."

The last part was something that she threw on, but she couldn't help it. This wasn't her, this wasn't the way that she would normally act. She'd never show off a part of herself, particularly not something like...like this...

Her foot was wide rather than the slender sole of a proper woman, and it had been beaten down regularly with her long walks. It didn't have the high arch of some of the other ladies out there, nor did it have the soft, almost odorless scent that proper women had. She had to work, and it showed.

Oh god, he's going to think I'm a freak. I just - why did I think this was a good idea?!

She was just about to pull her foot back off the table when -

Edge gripped her ankle, holding her pinned as he stared at her socked foot. This...this was something that he didn't understand either, but his body was more than slightly ready for it. He had never been this hard before, even when he was playing peeping tom. This was something willingly being shown off for him, a thanks that he had never expected to get.

His cheeks burned all the hotter, but he felt a smug sense of self-satisfaction as he felt the prison that contained Abyss start to tremble and shake inside of him, the other entity growling and retreating from the arousal that he felt at that moment. The more that he stared at that socked foot, the more amazing it looked to him, and the more sensual it felt.

It was wide, yes, but that meant that there was more to play with, with pudgy toes that would flatten and squish a bit against...certain parts. He blushed worse as he imagined just how powerful that would be against his groin, or against his face.

Edge looked up at Paige again, seeing her flushing worse than ever, and he smiled slightly. The edges of his scarf rose around his face as he leaned over the table, gently nuzzling his exposed nose against her toes.

"You...you like it?" she whispered.

He nodded.

"You...you promise? It's not just...trying to make me feel better?"

He pointed to his mouth again, but nodded.

"Oh, right. Sorry. Um. You...you're allowed to...play a bit...if you want."

The semi-confident display of putting her feet out and saying that he may 'indulge' if he wanted was completely gone, but that was fine. There was something utterly sexy about that confidence, but he knew that this was more the real Paige, the real bat that was behind the glasses and the smarts and the looking after people. This was the person that had managed to stand up for herself and keep as much control as she did in front of the hedgehog woman.

And this was the girl that was nice to him.

His face got no less red as he gently bit the tip of the sock, giving it a soft tug as he dragged it off her foot. The smell of her musk and the taste of a little sweat that came off the sock fabric only added to his personal arousal, his pants tenting harder than they had in some time. If this got much worse, he might need to change them later, but for now, he was only focused on her soles.

He dragged her sock all the way off, showing off her toes. They were bigger, a little rounder than the average toe, but when he looked between them at her face, at her mostly-covered, blushing face, he tried to show with a smile how much he liked them.

Then, he dragged his lips down the top of each, giving each one a gentle kiss. He fumbled here and there, his pose making it a bit difficult to do it elegantly, but at least he didn't mash his face completely into her soles in the process.

By the time that he reached her pinky toe, she was a bit more relaxed, taking off the other boot.

"I'm sorry they're not as...pretty...as other girls would have. I...I don't really think they look good...but I'm glad you like them," she said, stripping off her boot and putting her other socked foot on the table. "You can play with both of them...if you want..."

Despite his hunger to do just that, Edge slowly pulled his head back from her feet. He could feel Abyss growling in satisfaction in his chest, but that wasn't the reason he pulled back. No. He wanted...

Paper. He needed the paper.

He pulled that over, scrawling a message on it. His throat hurt as he wanted to scream for a moment, wanted to speak, wanted to do something that would be easier than writing what he wanted to say down...but he had no choice. Soon, it was done, and he passed it over.

#

Paige took the sheet, cocking her head to the side as the foot-hungry hedgehog sat down, looking at the floor and kicking his feet. She wasn't sure what was going on, but...well, she looked down at the page.

I...I want to do more, but it feels wrong when we just met. Could we...maybe...you know...hang out a bit first? I know a place to see the stars...maybe we could do that? I...I want you to be happy, too, to want this, not just...feel like you have to...

"Oh...Edge..."

She smiled.

"I'd love to."

The End

Summary: Edge and Paige finally have the chance to meet, and their mutual shyness, anxieties, confusion, and want for company have a chance to bounce off each other and finally figure out if they work.

Tags: M/F, foot fetish, hedgehog, bat, sonic the hedgehog, sweat, sock, boot, romance, rescue, hero, electricity, mute, series,