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sonic regrets waking up today.
he always does.
he doesn’t move to sit up right away. he just lays under the disgusting bedsheets he hasn’t changed in months.
they smell. they have a strong odor to them and it makes sonic feel sick that he can’t get up and just change them. he can feel the filth building up on his body. his fur was matted with his shed. it was summer after all—the peak season to run and enjoy life with his friends. to bathe in the summer sun and stay up all night, discussing life on the rooftop overlooking the stars.
he was too tired for that now.
he glanced at his bedside table. it was covered in old energy drink cans and water bottles, some grape soda cans lazily strewed around them. if he looked down off the side of his bed, he would see a mound of old takeout containers and doordash bags, sitting there, molding.
he knew if he looked the other way he would find a bunch of old coffee mugs that were full of mold. damn him for using too much sugar in his coffee. damn him for bringing the mugs in here at all.
sonic hated being dirty. he could handle some things, like a couple dishes in the sink or a bunch of dirty clothes strewn around a room. he could appreciate a mess. but outright mold?
it made him sick. sonic hated mold, hated the way his mom just cut around the mold and made him eat it anyways. whatever it was. a bagel, bread, cheese, meat, he was supposed to just cut off the mold and eat it anyways.
he grew up in that mindset. just cut away the bad parts and appreciate the good. thats what he did. he looked for the best in people and ignored their red flags, opting to invite them for a night in, no matter how unsafe he felt.
no matter how disgusting their hands felt against the skin of his thighs.
it was his fault anyways. all this mess. the mess of his head and the mess of his body.
he glanced at the blood stain on his carpet from a particularly bad night, leaving him digging a blade into his thighs until they went numb.
he winced as he adjusted his leg, his scars burning. who knew fully healed scars still hurt after the fact?
sonic should get up. he should clean his room and wash the dishes festering in his sink before tails comes over and has to beg him to take his meds again.
but he can’t. not with this weight sitting on his chest like a cold hunk of metal.
god, why does it always boil down to this?
it’s like there's something inside him that just ruins everything. ruins him every chance it gets. like it feeds off of his sorrow and he just lets it every time.
he hates bipolar. hates how it leaves him hopelessly better and all the more desperately worse. hates the way people always have to worry about him. he wishes he was just better already. he was sick of living in this cycle.
he’s tired of getting clean and digging a blade back into his arm all the same. he was sick of lashing out and begging for forgiveness, terrified they’d walk away and leave him in the dirt. he was sick of impulse buying things he’d never use.
he almost wishes eggman would attack again, just so he could throw himself in front of a laser and die.
he’d die a hero. a beautiful, crazy hero. his death would be broadcasted as a tragedy. not a suicide attempt.
thats what he wanted all along right? he had been throwing himself in front of danger day after wretched day because he didn’t know any other way to survive. he kept fighting robots and his brain and the people he cared about and none of it ever seemed to cure this sick feeling inside him.
but maybe death would.
sonic closed his eyes, burying his nose in his comforter as he begged for sleep to come.
***
“sonic?” tails called, knocking on the door to sonic’s apartment. he had been worried about sonic. the hedgehog had barely responded to his messages over the last week and a half and had been begging him not to come over—telling him he was busy or he just “wasn’t feeling it.”
he had a sinking feeling sonic was getting “bad” again.
sonic’s bipolar was difficult sometimes. even with his meds, he’d sometimes find sonic curled into a ball, lost to the depths of his pain. that was if sonic would even bother to take his meds.
he often claimed that he “felt better without them,” and that he was trying to go off of them for a bit, testing the waters and seeing if they’d make him feel better.
he almost wondered if sonic was scared of his pills. he’d watched them turn his brother into a zombie—barely moving, barely talking, just zoned out into nothing.
it hurt tails to see the way his brother struggled. he loved sonic. more than anyone else in the whole world. he was so grateful for him, he doesn’t know what he’d do without him.
he couldn’t imagine someone better raising him.
but, like the hero he was, sonic rarely let himself be taken care of. sonic letting someone take care of him was about as likely as tails letting someone fix the tornado for him. it had to be bad for his brother to remotely consider ir.
tails knocked louder. “sonic?” no response. he growled to himself, tapping his toe idly. “if you don’t answer, im letting myself in!”
there was no answer.
tails made quick work unlocking the door, having picked himself out of school lockers and enemy cells so many times he couldn’t count.
as he opened the door, he was immediately hit with a foul smell.
he walked in and— holy shit.
the sink was so full of dishes it overflowed to the rest of the island, filling the area all around it. flies buzzed above and through the dishes. the trash was in a similar situation, old paper towels and snack wrappers scattering the ground.
looking past that mess and into the living room, the coffee table was littered with mugs, old mail, soda cans. blankets were scattered along the floor and something had spilled, leaving a sticky brown substance covering the table and floor.
the couch was covered in laundry baskets, besides one cushion in the very corner. he supposed that was where sonic sat.
god, where was his brother in all this mess??
he walked across energy drink cans and random pieces of trash as he knocked on his brothers door. “sonic?” he whispered.
no response.
he closed his eyes, half expecting his brother to be dead when he opened the door.
his room was in poor condition. the carpet was stained with god knows what—blood?? coffee?? grape soda?? monster energy??
he was sure all of those were on the ground somewhere under the old takeout containers and the hoard of energy drinks covering his bedside table.
he looked at the blue mound under his bedsheets, staring in horror at his younger brother. he looked thin, his eyes carrying deep bags and his quills so matted together it almost hurt to look at. he was thinner than tails remembered him, his wrists a little more scarred too.
“tails…” sonic’s voice wobbled with terror or fear, tail’s didn’t know.
“sonic, what happened?”
tails approached sonic slowly, like a stray dog, and sat on the edge of sonics bed. jeez, when was the last time his brother changed these sheets?
“i thought you were doing better…” tails watched his brother sit up, clearly ashamed of his mess. sonic wrapped his arms around himself feeling the cold air around him sink in.
“i thought i was too.” sonic was blunt, not meeting tail’s eyes. “i guess i didn’t.”
tail’s sighed. “have you been taking your meds?”
sonic looked away, tears brewing in the back of his eyes. “not really.”
“then let’s start there.” he grabbed sonic’s hand, standing up. “c’mon.”
sonic muttered something, pulling his blue comforter back to reveal plaid blue sheets and stood up, stretching his leg muscles as he slumped over, following tails to his kitchen.
“sit down. i’ll grab your meds.” he pulled back a chair for sonic, who muttered his thanks as he sat down, lightly tugging at the fur on his upper arms.
tail’s heart clenched as he hurriedly grabbed his brother’s meds, grabbing the last clean dish from the cupboard and filling it up with water from the dirty-dish ridden sink.
“here. you should probably take those with food…”
“i’m not really all that hungry.” sonic said. he sounded like he wasn’t really all there. maybe he wasn’t, tail’s thought, seeing the way his dull eyes stared at the room around him.
“well, im hungry. we could order something!” tails hurriedly suggested. sonic seemed to ponder that for a second.
“yeah, that sounds nice. what do you want?”
“is meh burger alright?”
“i’d hardly consider that food.”
“true.”
“can i get a chili dog with a side of fries and absolutely no onions?”
“yeah. i’ll add extra onions, just for you.”
“tails, i swear to god.”
tails giggled, customizing sonics food and quickly ordering the meals and tucking his phone back into his pocket. he glanced back up and sonic was smiling gently at him.
tails smiled back, a warm feeling making his heart dance. he loved when sonic smiled at him like that. it was so raw and full of love it could make him cry.
“it’ll be here in like thirty-ish minutes. i figure we can play some video games or something while we wait.”
“sounds good to me.” sonic stood up, stretching his back again as he followed tails into the living room. he grimaced at the state of his home, clearly embarrassed from the way his ears flushed slightly.
“sorry about the mess little buddy.” sonic rubbed the back of his neck as he moved some of the laundry baskets over, rubbing the crumbs off the couch and patting for tails to sit.
“pfft, it’s fine.” tails was normally a slight germaphobe, always making sure his room was nice and tidy for the fear of brain-eating amoebas crawling into his ears and dying while he slept. “i don’t really mind it. we can always clean up
later y’know.”
“yeah, i guess.” sonic grabbed the controllers from the table beside them, powering up his xbox. “what game?”
“you pick!”
they settled on a silly racing game, laughing as neither of them ended up winning. they were too busy shoving each other, eventually ending in a play fight that sent them both tumbling to the floor.
sonic’s eyes lit up in the same way they used to before he got bad again.
healing was never linear afterall.
and even when they discovered a family of mice in sonic’s takeout trash pile and a suicide note from three years ago, tail’s knew it’d all be okay. that sonic would pull through.
because that’s what sonic did best. survive the odds thrown at him in such a way it lit up the rest of the world.
sonic looks at tails. he’s fast asleep under his newly washed sheets, underneath the cork board on the wall next to his bed. its covered in reminders to take his meds and his favorite memories with his friends and suddenly he is so swarmed with love it burns his heart.
a tear finds his way out of his eyes as he lays next to tails, like he did when he was fifteen, and cry.
good tears, of course, little sniffles and quiet sobs as he remembers how lucky he is to have tails, and knuckles and amy and hell—even shadow as people in his life.
he closed his eyes, letting the warm thrum in his chest lull him to sleep.
maybe he won’t regret waking up tomorrow.