Day One, Prompt: Safety Net/Count my Fingers

Sonic swore he'd come back just fine, he's always is. However, he's stumbling over his own two feet and his head is hurting bad. Knuckles just this one time, hates being right.


Everything hurts. Head, legs, feet everything.

He always turned out fine in the end but he's not so sure about that this time.

Knuckles and Sonic had been at one of the temples at Angel Island when Metal Sonic seemingly jumped the both of them out of nowhere. Metal seemed to be of no interest in wanting to fight against Knuckles; only his polar opposite.

Knowing how much it would anger Knuckles if they fought out in the middle of his precious island, Sonic made sure to direct himself and Metal to a different part of it. Away from all the sacred temples and the Master Emerald itself.

Knuckles seemed to want to join in on the fight as it was his island to protect but Sonic as he dodged some hits that Metal tried to strike him with insisted that he stay behind in case Metal ended up being a distraction for Eggman to get close to the Master Emerald.

Although, he had wished Knuckles did help him this one time as much as he hated to admit it. Eggman most likely calibrated Metal to be in a more powerful state than he has ever been. He was landing punches that took all the air out of him.

With that, Sonic found him lying in a mossy field—a small pond nearby. His head was pounding and he couldn't lift his head without feeling a huge wave of an ache at his temples. Near him laid the remains of Metal. Head separated from the rest of his body as smoke emitted from its transmitters due to their brawl.

Metal was taken care of, however, not before getting some good hits on Sonic.

Said hedgehog simply could not move. He tried to stand but it felt like a real weight on his shoulders was pulling him down. Somehow he managed to make it on his back which probably made things worse as his head would simply not stop throbbing. It made his back arch.

Maybe he was a little too preoccupied with the ache in his head that he didn't realize a gash at his waist. Blood discreetly seeped into his fur down his side. It was the thick liquid running down his side that struck him out of his trace. He recalled that Metal had grazed him at some point with his knife-sharp fingers but had too much adrenaline to even process it during their fight. He had gone in pretty deep too.

He found himself bringing his hand to his waist, instantly pulling back not realizing how sensitive the area became. Red stained that purely white glove. It didn't matter anyway, they were ripped after they had caught onto Metal's structure at some point.

He brought his head up to try to inspect his wound but instantly regretted it bringing the back of his head back down against the damp grass.

Staying here wasn't an option. If his wound is as bad as he thinks it is he needs to find his way back to Knuckles.

Sonic's breathing elapses. His hand clutches at a small patch of grass before he quickly lifts himself to a sitting position before he can find himself lying back down once more. He's groaning as he does so and huffs when he finally can sit properly. He's out of breath despite finishing off Metal minutes earlier.

Eyes open and close in a sequence. Opening his eyes only makes him dizzy despite his sitting form. Emerald eyes remain closed for probably about a whole 2 minutes. He needs to try to get his breathing and dizziness under control. His head doesn't stop pounding and his wound doesn't stop flowing.

When he finally can maintain his composure, his hand finds itself against a tree and uses it as leverage to pick himself up. But his vision is still blurry so he doesn't realize he's about to step over a wet part of the grass until he does.

He bites his tongue not wanting to let out that wail he knew was bound to come out of his mouth as his fall aggravated his gash. His hand is gripping onto that tree for dear life and he uses it to dig his fingers in.

Small moans are falling out of his mouth now. That gash that was originally somewhat manageable seemed to be dripping down his thigh at a very worrisome rate. If he didn't go now he would be too disorientated to do anything.

So with a whine, he picks himself up again trying to step over that wet spot again.

Any sense of direction was boggled with his vision still not deciding not to steady itself so Sonic found himself off balance nearly tipping over like a bowling pin. Although he did know that the temple they were at was to the west of the island, where the sun rose. Through his foggy vision, he found the brightest object mildly blinding him and followed it as his guide out the part of the island he and Metal found themselves in.

The ache in his head seemed to only get worse the more he kept telling on the trail back to where he believed Knuckles to be. Most likely the sun was making his head hurt but it was starting to get to a point where he might find himself passing out. His dizziness was either from his head pounding or the amount of blood he'd lost up to this point.

He's not sure how he's made it back without completely crumbling to the ground but he does. His vision clears up slightly because he can make out the shape of the temple and the bright figure that is starting to get closer to him. With that, he trips over his foot and falls to his knees not caring if he lets out a wail this time around.

"Holy Chaos Sonic what the hell happened?" Knuckles worded sounding genuinely worried.

When Sonic doesn't respond, he attempts to lift Sonic by his forearms with his massive boxer gloves; however, never before Sonic lets out a cry does he stop. When he smells a small tang of metallic or copper his worries only rise.

'Where is it?' Knuckles questions as his eyes wander all over the blue one's body trying to find the source of that unmistakable scent. His eyes shift down below when he sees Sonic covering that heavily overflowing wound that is now starting to drip between his fingers and muddy the grass below.

"Okay, okay -um- lay down. Come on."

Knuckles helps Sonic lie down on the grass as he scrambles through his head on what to do. He's not panicked nor is he simply quite unsure how to deal with a bloody and disoriented Sonic at his hands who never comes back from a fight this hurt before.

What is Knuckle's biggest concern is not the blood that starts to wet his own hands as he tries to apply pressure but the fact that Sonic has not said a peep and he can confirm that the blue one is conscious.

"Hey Stay awake. I can't have you passing out on me yet. Not like this."

Sonic bobbed his head, delirious however seemed to have been able to process Knuckles' words.

"I -ugh- no, no I'm awake," breathing heavily.

He picks up his breath as he gazes at Knuckles' hand over his own, "Chaos Sonic if I'd known this would happen I would have helped you."

"N-no. Risky. Too risky," Sonic tethered.

Seemingly wanting to converse more although noticing the dip in his number of words, Knuckles decides it's just best to focus on the situation at hand, "It doesn't matter, are you hurt elsewhere other than the fact that you're bleeding out on me."

"N-no, just my head feels like it's gonna split in two. And I'm real dizzy so there's–"

Knuckles unintentionally presses with a firmer grip on his wound making Sonic cry out mid-sentence. He almost pulls away but Knuckles is also grabbing onto his hands firmly.

"Chaos Knuckles lean up a bit would you?"

"Sonic the last thing I need is you passing out me especially when you most likely have a bad concussion. So don't you dare close your eyes?"

Knuckles almost sounded worried, he thought. He found no point in keeping his eyes open any longer. It's not like they've cleared up any since.

He nearly slips into a peaceful slumber. Away from all this pain and the ache he feels all over his limbs but he's shaken awake but he gets the chance.

"Blue, come on, look at me," Knuckles uttered, desperate.

Sonic tries but his vision keeps playing games with him. It only becomes blurry and blier and the edges of his vision are slowly blackening. He tries to observe the big red blob in front of him.

"Come on, look how many fingers am I holding up? Can you see that blue?"

He wants to respond but he simply shakes his head. He can't see crap.

When Sonic doesn't respond showing incompatibility, Knuckles sneers under his breath. There was nothing on the island that he could use to stabilize the wound. He truly didn't want to so seeing there was no other choice he ultimately decided to retrieve the Master Emerald

"Gods Sonic, okay stay here I will be right back. Don't do anything stupid. Try to stay awake okay? I'll be fast."

The wounded one smiles groggily. 'Fast is my middle name, not yours'. He wants to say such but he isn't given the chance to respond before he feels those mits fly off his waist as he feels instant relief from the pressure. He stares at what he thinks is a tree above him, giving his mind something to do all the while he waits for Knuckles' return. He could finally sleep if he wanted to but knowing Knuckles, he would probably beat the crap out of him for doing so even if he was injured.

He's not sure how long he's spent eyes that tree but he hears a faint ruffling afar until it gets closer and closer.

Maybe his mind went to sleep but physically he's awakened because he cannot hear anything of what he presumes Knuckles is saying.

The red guardian returns with the Master Emerald in his mit, shrunken down to size to accommodate what he's about to do. He places a hand over Sonic's wound which has begun to somewhat clot and transfers healing energy to repair itself. Flesh eventually overtwines itself and by the time he finishes, a faint red scar is left behind that would eventually go away altogether in due time.

When he's finished he places his hand over Sonic's forehead and begins to ease that abominable headache he had, hoping it would ease the concussion he surely had.

The energy transmitted from the emerald felt so warm and comforting, that it only made him more tired. Knuckles let him this time, thank Chaos. This time, when he feels like his ears are no longer stuffed with cotton, he only hears "Stupid hedgehog, don't ever let this happen again. You worried me for a second there."

Knuckles was never worried about him. He thought he could care less about him but hearing him say otherwise, a small smile formed over his muzzle before he felt the world slip right under him.


A New Story!? Nah not really, just a series of prompts written for this year's Whumptober! I did one back in 2021 but back then I only did 12 days contrary to the 31, so now I want to make up for it so that I can finally say I've actually completed an entire month's worth of prompts. I also made up those tropes as I went on so now this year, we're just going to follow the ones provided by Tumblr. I'm also keeping the same name as Tropetober as I had it originally instead of Whumptober since the last one I did was named the same way so we're keeping it for consistency's sake. Anyway, I just started my first year of college! Hopefully, I won't be too busy to write. Also, this chapter sounds an awful lot like one of my other stories however I couldn't come up with anything else for this so it's kind of like a spin-off of that I suppose.