Alright everyone, it's serious story time again. So before we begin, a bit of a disclaimer, this short story deals with serious topics, more specifically with self harm. If that's something you don't want to read, then feel free to click off the story now. So with that out of the way, let's do this.
Bladed Sorrows
Discovery
Tails tried to refocus on his work, putting the section of the Tornado's wing he was working on in the front of his thoughts.
It wasn't long before he let out a deep sigh, setting his tools down in defeat. Normally working on projects like this made him happy, but right now, he didn't really feel anything, he felt completely adrift in his own emotions. He'd been trying to cheer himself up, but this was the worst he'd felt in days.
It wasn't long before the nagging voices of his doubts started to come back to his focus.
"What good can you do? You can't even work on the Tornado anymore."
Tails took a deep breath to try and clear his head but his inner thoughts refused to leave.
"You're just sad all the time, do you really think Sonic likes being with you when you're like this?"
The thoughts continued as the fox sat at his workbench, taking a glance over at the multitool resting nearby.
"You're useless, the one thing you could do was invent things and now you can't even do that."
Tails pulled both his gloves off, setting them down on the bench, unraveling the bandages secured around his wrists. He grabbed the nearby multitool, extending a short knife from it as he lowered the tool down toward his wrist.
"I mean look at yourself, you're pathetic, you didn't even try to save her did you?"
That was enough.
The fox winced as he felt the now familiar sharp white pain from his wrist surge up his arm, followed by a short powerful wave of euphoria shocking his system as his brain released some endorphins to dull the pain.
He took a second to just enjoy the feeling that came with it, forgetting any of the negative feelings and doubts that came with remembering what had happened. It wasn't long before the pleasant feeling subsided, leaving him to his own thoughts once again.
Deep down, Tails knew he had a problem. Really, he knew he never should have started doing this, but everything is always so much easier looking back. He needed to stop, but actually doing it was much harder than just making the decision in his head.
Still, the fact was he needed to stop cutting himself.
He'd tried other things of course, but every time he always found himself coming back to this, nothing else he tried worked anywhere near as well at keeping thoughts that he didn't want out of his head. Especially since there wasn't anybody but himself to stop him whenever he decided to resort to cutting again.
Tails knew he needed help, but getting that help would require telling someone about what was happening and the prospect of that terrified him. What would Knuckles, Amy, or Sonic think about this if they found out what he was doing? He knew they'd want to help, and Tails really did want them to help, but it was always more complicated than that wasn't it?
Telling someone meant he'd inevitably have to make whoever he told feel terrible, and it would make himself feel horrible as well. The last thing he wanted was to push his problems on anyone else, and especially not onto Sonic.
As his mind started to wander again, he felt the usual doubts creep back into his thoughts.
"You should have saved her."
"There's so much more you could have done."
"Weren't you supposed to be the genius that had everything figured out?"
"What would Cosmo think if she could see you right now?"
Another white flash of pain and a wave of endorphins pushed the thoughts away as Tails slit his wrist once again, feeling the calming sensation return.
Truth be told, he was starting to enjoy the pain as well.
The brief euphoria faded away and immediately the urge to cut himself again was back. He looked down at his damaged and scarred wrists, a bit of blood was leaking from both of the fresh cuts. That was probably enough for now…
The fox wiped a little bit of blood from the blade with a nearby cloth before setting the multitool back down on his workbench, folding the knife back inside. He then unrolled part of a fresh set of bandages he kept nearby and carefully wrapped both his injured wrists. The reason he'd told Sonic the bandages were there was so that he could tend to small injuries while working.
He had at least partially told the truth…
Finishing tending to his wrists and disposing of the old bandages, he slid his gloves back on, hoping they'd be enough to hide what he'd been doing to himself. It seemed like they grew closer and closer to not completely covering his bandages each time.
He really hoped nobody would notice…
Luckily, his gloves seemed to still cover everything, letting Tails relax at least a little about it. With everything finally tended to he stood from his chair in the workshop, pushing off any last remnants of the urge to hurt himself. He took a glance at the pot that Cosmo's seed was growing in. A small flower had appeared in it a few weeks ago, and that was something he supposed.
Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he started up the stairs that exited the workshop. Sonic would probably be home soon, and he figured he'd at least say hello before doing some more work on his projects for the day.
Almost like clockwork, the hedgehog came through the front door as he returned from his run. "Tails, you here?"
"Yeah, just coming to get a drink." Tails said as he reached the top of the stairs.
"Well at least you're not forgetting to do that. So, what are you working on now?"
"You wanna see it?"
"I probably won't understand very much, but sure!"
The fox led Sonic downstairs to the workshop, his original reason for going upstairs completely forgotten with the chance to talk about what he was doing.
Sonic never really understood much of what exactly Tails did when he was working here, too many technical terms for him to follow along, but he did know that the kit did like to talk about what he was building.
"So basically," Tails began, gesturing to a portion of the Tornado's wings that looked as if they'd been disassembled. "The current design has far too much drag, so I'm reworking it to go a little faster. Also I'm going to try moving the atmospheric sensors to the wings, maybe they'll get more effective readings there. That's probably going to take a bit of work, but overall, it shouldn't be too hard."
"All I heard was you want to make it go faster."
"I figured you'd like that part."
"So what else are you working on?" The hedgehog asked, looking around the workshop for a second before sitting in the chair next to Tails' main workbench. "You're never really one to only have a single project."
"Well, mainly other small things. I'm trying to also make some improvements to the Miles Electric, but those are still being planned out. Another idea I had was-"
Sonic pushed what the fox was saying to the back of his head for a second, the hedgehog had spotted something a bit concerning. The cloth resting on the workbench he was sitting at had a few small red splotches on it, they weren't very big, and there weren't very many of them, but it was still enough for Sonic to have a bit of concern. The bandages also looked as if they'd been used recently.
"Tails, you didn't hurt yourself working today did you?"
The fox's explanation of his projects stopped dead in its tracks as his brain flew into panic mode at being asked that question.
Sonic could not find out about what he was doing.
"Oh, I hurt my arm a bit working on the Tornado, but it's fine, I didn't even really need bandages or anything."
"So… What'd you use them for then?"
"Just cleaning it up a little bit afterward, it's fine really."
"Can I take a look?"
More panic entered Tails' thoughts, "Sonic, it's fine, really. Just drop it okay?"
Sonic eyed the fox with a bit of suspicion, judging by Tails' subtle fidgeting, he knew he was lying. "Tails, if you don't want help with it that's fine. But I know it isn't your arm that you hurt, I just want to see it, and please be honest. You can trust me."
Tails felt like he was going to vomit. A feeling of lightheadedness made it hard for him to think straight. There really wasn't any way of getting himself out of this that wouldn't involve an argument and leaving Sonic seriously suspicious.
"Don't you want help with this anyways? Just tell him, he's not going to hate you for it!"
"He just won't understand, he'll be horrified I'm doing this to myself."
"But he can help you! Do you want to tell him now, or wait until he eventually finds out on his own?"
Sonic was even more concerned by the fact that Tails took a moment to respond, he had a bad feeling about this.
The fox took a deep breath to try and calm his nerves before he spoke, looking over at the hedgehog. "Sonic… Promise me you won't be mad…"
"About what?"
"Promise…"
Now Sonic was beyond worried, he hadn't really expected something like this when he'd first asked his question. But Tails was family, and judging by the look of fear in his blue eyes, it was obvious he had something to get off his chest. "I promise bud."
Taking another deep breath, the fox moved over to sit on the floor next to Sonic, feeling as if he was walking on eggshells the whole time. His lightheadedness had only gotten worse and he felt as if he was going to pass out. "It's… It's my hands…"
Sonic got out of the chair and knelt down next to the fox, Tails was on the brink of tears and was trembling. "Can I look?"
The fox gave a very small and nervous nod, avoiding eye contact as he did. Sonic removed the fox's glove, he was immediately alarmed by the bandages wrapped around the fox's wrists. He carefully started to undo the bandages, eventually removing them completely.
He was horrified by what he saw underneath…
Scars and incisions lined the fox's wrist but what really drew Sonic's attention was that some of them were very fresh, to the point it was still slightly bleeding. Another thing that had him alarmed were that these scars were unnaturally straight, and they certainly weren't a one time occurrence.
"Tails… You're not…"
The fox started to cry as Sonic took a moment to internalize what he was seeing, he undid the bandages on Tails' other hand, discovering similar scars there as well.
"Tails… This… This isn't healthy… Why didn't you tell me?"
"It just… It hurts so much to think about her…"
As soon as he saw the scars Sonic had suspected this had something to do with Cosmo's death, it'd been six months since then and he'd thought the fox had finally gotten over it.
It seemed like Tails had been dealing with his grief in the worst way possible…
"But why this? Why cutting yourself?" Sonic asked, trying his hardest to avoid getting angry, he knew that was the last thing the fox needed right now, besides, he'd promised.
"Nothing else I did helped… It really hurt the first time… But now… I… I kinda like the pain… It gets rid of the bad thoughts…"
"Tails that's…"
"I know but… It just… It feels so good and…" The fox's voice trailed off as his emotions got the better of him and his crying got worse. "Just don't take it away… Nothing else works…"
Sonic knew this was bad, really bad, but also that just completely taking this release for the fox's emotions would just drive him further into dangerous ways to help himself feel better, there had to be a safer alternative. "Tails, we're going to have to make some changes, and it's probably going to be hard. But you can't keep doing this to yourself… We'll find something better, but I don't want you to keep hurting yourself like this…"
Tails started to finally get a handle on his emotions, it strangely felt good for Sonic to find out what he had been doing. He wasn't quite sure whether he should be ashamed or relieved.
"So…" Sonic said. "Do you want to try and fix this? It's not going to work unless you want it to…"
Tails was silent for a second before answering in a quiet voice. "Yes…"
"Well that's the first step," Sonic continued, wrapping his arm around the fox.
"Sonic… You don't hate me do you?" The fox muttered, gently rubbing the incisions on one of his wrists.
"I don't hate you bud, you've just got a lot of emotions going on right now and you were just doing whatever you thought would help… But I am a bit upset at the fact you didn't just come talk to me about things…"
"I'm sorry…"
"It's fine… But I want to ask, why? You're the smartest kid I know, how'd you get to thinking this was a good idea?"
"It was an accident… At least at first… I hurt myself while working and… I wasn't thinking about her for a bit… The bad thoughts just stopped… So I… I did it again… On purpose this time…"
"How often do you… Cut yourself?"
"Every couple weeks…" Tails continued, swallowing nervously afterward. "That was a lie… E-Every… Every couple days…"
Tails started to cry again, and Sonic pulled him into a hug.
"Hey, I know it's hard to talk about it. But we're going to fix this. It's not going to be easy, but it'll be possible. You're a tough kid so everything will be alright, I'm sure of it."
The fox wiped the tears from his eyes, "Does that mean… I have to tell someone else about this…"
"Well… I mean, as much as I'd like to just do this on my own, I'm not exactly a professional… Maybe you could talk to a therapist? Would you be alright with that? Honestly, we probably should have thought about doing that when everything happened a few months ago…"
"I'd… I'd be fine with that… I just don't want Knuckles, Amy, or anyone else to know… I don't want to worry them…"
"I wasn't planning on telling them bud, not unless you wanted to, but I'll leave that decision up to you."
Tails was quiet for a bit, the two didn't really feel any need to say much else as the fox just took in the warmth from Sonic's hug, still gently fidgeting with his own wrists.
It felt like hours passed before Sonic broke the silence. "Tails, you know I still love you, right?"
"Yeah…"
"Well don't forget that. I don't care if you feel like you don't deserve it right now. You're still family, and I'm here to help."
Silence filled the room for a second before Tails spoke again. "Thank you Sonic."
"Anytime bud, and remember, I'm here to help you. We'll get through this."
While Tails definitely still felt sad, the small glimmer of hope that Sonic had helped spark was a welcome change. He looked down at his own scarred and injured wrists and knew that as long as Sonic was here, things would be alright.
It could only get better from here.
Alright everyone, that's it for now. Depending on what you all thought of it I'm open to writing more after this, so let me know what you thought about it in a review. I'll see you all later.
