II

Answers?

The young fox boy was busy working with his little stubby nose in a pile of papers on his desk when he heard his voice called. "Tails?" A soft, familiar voice called out blindly. The sound had come from the direction of the living room. "Tails?" The voice called out once more. The aforementioned fox quickly leaped from his seat and rushed into the living room where he saw a wandering girl amongst some toppled over furniture. "Cos…mo? Is that… you?" The fox inquired with his eyes squinted at the Seedrian, almost as if he was seeing things.

"Of course it's me, Tails." She responded gently, afraid that her words would break the fox immediately, due to his increasingly deteriorating emotional state.

"But… but… how?" he asked in an almost disbelieving manner. "Nevermind, all that matters is that you're here, and that's all I've ever wanted." Tails continued, looking towards the ground shyly. Cosmo reached out to the confused fox's chin and leveled his face with hers. I'm here, Tails, and I'll never leave you again." Said the Seedrian softly as she smiled at Tails, staring into his blue eyes with intent.

She lowered her hand from his chin and raised her other, both headed to a very frazzled fox's hips. "Oh!" He exclaimed with a blush, looking to the side in nervousness, desperately attempting to avoid her gaze, but found himself, instead, glued to her beautiful, sapphire eyes, perfectly matching the color of his own. She stared right back into his, smiling at the fox with a slightly seductive look on her face.

"Cosmo… W-what are you… do-?" He was interrupted by a sudden and surprising kiss to the lips by his love. Rather than question it, he simply just closed his eyes and enjoyed it, unknowingly placing his hands on her hips as well, letting his tails start to wag back and forth, much like a dog. Cosmo chuckled quietly at this and began stroking her love's blushing cheek.

"You're adorable, you know that?" She asked rhetorically with a loving tone. Tails blushed even harder this time. What had gotten into her? Why was she suddenly so… The realization struck Tails like lightning to metal.

"COSMO!" The fox screamed as he suddenly awoke in cold sweat; depression washed over him once more as he realized it was... "Just another dream." He concluded sadly as a piece of paper fell from his forehead. Tails caught the paper upside down in his hands and flipped it right-side-up to examine it. The paper had diagrams of a lot of crazy stuff, amongst others were a Chaos Emerald, a flower, and some crazy looking machine that tails was probably planning to construct.

"That's right!" The fox shouted louder than he intended. A blush washed over him, even though there was no one else there watching him… or was there? "I was trying to figure out how I could bring you back, my sweet flower." He continued to the rose sitting just across from him on the paper-filled desk at which he was sitting at again. A slight smile returned to his face when he looked at the flower. "I love you." He stated with another blush. "Just you wait! I'm gonna figure this thing out, and once I do… we'll be together… finally… together once more."

"Man… what time is it?" He finally asked himself as he glanced at the clock, still crooked from before as he still hadn't fixed it. "two forty-fi-wait, WHAT?" The fox was utterly baffled. "wasn't it… three… last time I looked at the time?" He questioned with a confused expression. "ugh… damn clock must be broken." He deducted with slight disbelief. "But still… it shouldn't have… gone backwards…?" tails rubbed his groggy, blood-shot eyes and took another look at the clock. "2:45" It read the same as before. "Hm… let's go take a look." He said to himself as he started towards the clock. He stopped dead in his tracks. "Man… I've really gotta stop talking to myself… people might think I'm crazy." He mentioned to himself ironically.

"Agh…!" Tails exclaimed as a sudden bolt of tiredness hit him like a rock; his eyes grew blurry with his body shaking and he felt as though he was about to fall over. "Jeez, am I really this tired?" He questioned, knowing it was probably something else that he rather wanted to avoid thinking about. "Whatever, screw the clock, I'll fix it later. The clock responded with an electrical sputter as the whole house went black.

"Great… just great. Blackout. Better go start up the emergency generator." The little fox, very frazzled from past events, started towards the area where the generator was, tripping over random bits and bobs on the way to. "Should've brought a flashlight with me, dammit; I can't see two feet in front of my face."

"Oomph!" He exclaimed as he finally bumped into a large red machine with pipes and cords going off in every direction it seemed. He managed to make out a large lever over a few feet from where he was standing which was currently flipped to "OFF". "Alright, let's get that power flowin'." He said with a hint of fake stupidity in his voice, almost imitating his best bro, Sonic as he flipped a large lever to "ON". They would do that sometimes, imitate one another, to poke fun; he found himself reminiscing of old times once again as he said this.

Suddenly, a large blast of light traveled through the house, returning power to his abode, but most importantly, to the lamp, lighting up the beautiful rose sitting on his desk. He smiled as he laid eyes on it once more. "Cosmo… so beautiful. Even in this form, I cannot avoid gazing upon you."

The fox had only started walking back to his desk when suddenly… SMACK! He fell to the floor, confused. "Did I trip?" He questioned, equally as confused. "No? nothing to trip over, I must be getting really tired; I can never seem to get any sleep anymore." He paused for a second and started right back to his desk almost as soon as he had stopped. "Gotta figure out these answers." He thought to himself determined as he sat back down at his desk.

As he sat, he felt another sudden wave of tiredness and fatigue wash over him. "Could it be… no. I kicked that long ago, why would it… be back…?" The young fox, with a worried expression, opened a drawer in his desk with papers stacked up high; he removed the papers to reveal a syringe with a blackish brown liquid inside and a few other capsules with liquid of the same likeness. He held the syringe up to look at it better, lightly releasing some of the excess liquid built up on the tip of the needle. His heart began beating faster and faster as he watched mesmerized as very pleasant looking dark liquid fell to the floor. "Should I…?" He started with heavy breaths and bloodshot eyes. "I guess I'm not as 'over it' as I thought I was." He deducted. "I gotta stay strong, what would the guys think…?"

"Oh, but Tails… it's so… good…" He tried to persuade himself, now shaking uncontrollably.

"No… NO! I can't! You can't make me. I won't-" He tried to refuse, but interrupted himself.

"Just one shot. You know you want it." He said back to himself in a whisper.

The fox begrudgingly moved his hand holding the syringe with the shadowy liquid incased slowly towards his inner elbow of the opposite arm, shaking nonstop the whole time; he was moving almost as if his mind was being manipulated to do so.

"I-I… I can't…" He said shakily as he lowered his hand down to his side.

"You're a fucking coward; a spineless weakling. I knew you wouldn't be able to do it." He said with disgust towards himself. "Let me take over. Just… just for a little bit." He said in another whispered voice. "Don't you want to feel good again?"

The fox maddeningly clutched his head with his free hand and brought the syringe back up to look upon it once more, his whole body shaking furiously.

"That's it… just a little… bit… more." He said in an almost silent tone.

"Tails! Stop!" A third voice insisted suddenly, causing Tails to drop the syringe to the floor, shattering the glass and spilling the black liquid all over the floor beneath him.

"Who-who's there?" The fox questioned with both hands to his ears. "Go away! LEAVE ME ALONE!" He screamed, shoving everything off of his desk, as it tumbled onto the floor next to said desk.

"God… her voice… it haunts me, even now. I think I've finally gone insane."

The soft voice spoke once more. "No, Tails, I'm here." Out of thin air, a holographic looking Cosmo appeared. "Tails, I'm still alive, in that plant. Please… you can't let it die… because then… I die." Tails was overjoyed when he heard this. "So… there's a chance to bring you back?" He asked, expecting her not to know the answer. "Yes." She responded, much to Tails' confusion. "Right now, I'm still growing, and I won't be reborn like I was until another few decades."

Tails' face washed over with sadness once more. How could he wait that long?

"But, Tails, if you use the pow…" Cosmo's voice started to trail off until she disappeared completely, leaving a sad, confused Tails to guess at what she meant to say.

"No! Cosmo! Come back! Dammit… so… close." He smacked his forehead against the hard desk in ire. He didn't mind the physical pain it caused, it distracted him from the unhealing, ever increasing emotional pain that had remained stagnant for so long inside him, and was destined to persist like that throughout his life.

"You're always so close, but just out of reach." The fox said paradoxically. He sighed depressingly and sat back in his chair, looking out the window to as the rain still pattered against the window. "The night is seeming to go on forever… I can't wait to see my friends tomorrow."

As the hours slowly ticked away, the sleepy fox finally found himself slipping into a slumber; he was definitely ready for the night to be over with.


(Words so far: 3,041)

HEY GAIZ! New chapter out; I do hope you enjoyed, as I'm pouring my whole heart into this one! 3

Anyway, yes, I will bring Cosmo back, and if it's not the next chapter, it'll probably be the one after that. Then, there'll be so much Taismo you won't be able to HANDLE it! :D I'm just trying to set everything up for what I hope to be a very long and convoluted story plot.


*sidenote*

the 'black liquid' I was referring to is black tar heroin if you couldn't figure out what it was.