The Hell We Live In

Two

__Tails slammed the front door behind him. This made T-Pup start barking until it realized it was just Tails in a bad mood and retreated back into the workshop. Tails tried calming himself down by doing his breathing excercises. He was still shocked at himself for calling Perci a whore in public out of anger like that, but he kept reassuring himself that she fucking deserved it. She would not leave him alone. She was just lucky he simply called her that instead of punching her in the face. Honestly! She's worse than Amy. He finally felt calm again and went into his workshop.
__He set his bags down on one of his desks and pulled out one of the boxes. He took one bolt from that box and grabbed one of his small wrenches before heading to his plane. He opened the hood and took out the broken bolt before replacing it. Now everything in his workshop should be working fine without problems for a while.
__He remembered the dishes he left on the table and was about to leave when his phone went off. He checked and saw that Sonic had texted him. He looked at the message and saw that it just said "Kitchen" with a winky face emoji next to it. Tails flattened his ears and groaned as he put his phone away and walked into his kitchen. Sure enough the blue hedgehog was already washing the dishes for him. He turned to Tails when he was done and grinned. "Sup, dude!"
__Despite looking annoyed, Tails was kind of relieved he was there. "Listen, dude. You gotta stop breaking and entering into my house. We're not kids anymore."
__The blue hedgehog tittered. "Bah! It's not a B and E if I'm using one of your keys to get in."
__Tails rolled his eyes as he and Sonic walked into the living room and sat down on the couch. He grabbed the remote and turned on the TV before looking at Sonic. It was right there and then that he saw a lot of bruises on Sonic's skin. "What happened to you?"
__Sonic's ears went flat as he looked at the bruises on his left arm. "Oh, this?" He looked back at Tails. "Fell down the stairs. That's all. It's nothing to worry about." He then looked down as T-Pup walked over and placed its metal paws on Sonic's leg. "Hey, pooch!"
__Tails had already forgotten about the bruises as he leaned back on the couch. "What brings you here then?"
__Sonic mirrored his position and sighed. "What? You don't like hanging out anymore?"
__"No. I'm just asking." Tails then looked away from the hedgehog. "Don't you have your love life to figure out now?"
__Sonic buzzed his lips. "Speaking of which, what happened with Perci earlier?"
__Tails groaned. "You heard about that already?"
__"Gossip travels fast here," Sonic reminded the fox. "She tried asking you out again?"
__Tails let himself sink further against the couch. "Women are always fucking complaining about how men can never take hints when she can't even. The amount of times I've avoided her and tried changing the subject everytime she attempted, you would think a smart girl like her would understand I'm not interested."
__Sonic slowly nodded. "I feel ya there. Amy can be like that, but at least she respects my boundaries and whenever I don't seem interested." He then straightened as he put a hand on Tails's shoulder. "Don't let her get to you, man. I think all she needed was your outburst to finally understand. She'll move on."
__"She fucking better," Tails grumbled as he began stroking one of his tails. "I'm just not interested in dating in general."
__Sonic was silent for a bit before pulling his hand back. "You've never gotten over Fiona and Cosmo, huh?"
__Tails growled in annoyance. Under any normal circumstances he wouldn't talk about this. But this was his best friend. "Fiona was just a bitch. You knew that. She was too old for me anyway. And Cosmo... I don't even know if our relationship would have even worked out if she did live. It wasn't like we were boyfriend and girlfriend when we were out in space, and we were just children. Something would have happened between us one way or another."
__Sonic had avoided eye contact as he muttered "Zooey?"
__Tails sighed. "Honestly, what we had wasn't even real. Sure she was pretty, smart, and nice, but she wasn't for me. Again, we were kids."
__Sonic slipped off his shoes before bringing his feet on the couch and hugging his knees to his chest. "Tough love life for both of us."
__"Yeah right," Tails scoffed. "You still have either Amy or Sally to look forward to. I know you like them both. They're waiting for you to choose who you want."
__"I know! But this isn't exactly easy for me!" Sonic replied promptly. "I still don't know what I want..." he began to grow quiet as he ended his sentence.
__Knowing him for as long as he had, Tails knew Sonic was hiding something. But he was hiding his own shit so he wasn't going to pry his friend about it. "Did you at least tell them you need a lot of time for yourself to decide?"
__Sonic nodded. "Yeah. But none of us have an idea for how long."
__"You still have your entire life to figure it out," Tails reassured him. "We're still young after all."
__Sonic just tittered. "It's weird. It feels like we had it all figured out when we were kids. What happened to us?"
__Tails leaned forward and put his face in his hand. "Ugh! We grew up, and all we have to look back on is the horrible shit we went through to get to this point of quote on quote peace."
__"Well, I'm still grateful I had to go through what I did so no one else has to."
__Tails pondered a bit after hearing him say this. "Yeah. Better for us than this generation of kids and the ones to come after."
__"It'll be because of us that they'll be living happily, so there's that." Sonic then laid down on the couch, facing away from the fox.
__"Yeah." Although Tails did agree with Sonic about this, there was still part of him that didn't like this. Mostly everyone will never go through the hell that he endured. They will never truly understand his pain and shy away from him. The only good thing was he wasn't alone. Practically all of the Freedom Fighters had their own messed up shit from their childhood to this point. He had them at least. He was happy enough for that. Still, it didn't change the fact that he was very annoyed with the normies lack of awareness when it came to his problems.
__The two just continued to watch TV for about two hours. Every so often they would change their position on the couch. Eventually they found themselves where Tails was sitting with his back to Sonic, not even looking at the TV anymore, with Sonic laying his head on the fox's tails. Tails knew the hedgehog was asleep, but he really needed to get up and move. But he really didn't want to wake him up either. He knew Sonic needed rest more than him since he never stops whatever it was he was doing at night. Sonic had said several months ago that he started something that would require him to stay at home alone. At first Tails just assumed he was being dramatic about jerking himself off, but he clearly knew that wasn't what was keeping him up.
__T-Pup, who was lying beside Tails, suddenly sat up. It was staring at the door and started growling. The growling turned into loud barking, waking Sonic up. Tails sighed as he stood up, grabbed a throw pillow, and chucked it at Sonic's face. He smiled as he watched Sonic grumble as he laid his head on the pillow before walking to the door. He heard knocking just as he grabbed the doorknob and opened it. When he saw it was both Perci and Staci he tightly clenched the doorknob and felt his fur stand up on end. "No. No!"
__Perci was slightly standing in front of her twin sister as she looked at Tails. "Look, I admit I was being pushy, but what the hell was that earlier? You're better than that."
__Tails flattened his ears as he narrowed his eyes and scowled at her. "Perci, I really don't want to talk to either of you. Go home and leave me alone. I wasn't joking about making a restraining order."
__Perci looked at Staci before looking back at Tails. "What's going on with you? You're usually so nice."
__Tails started growling. "I said go home. I don't want to go out with you. I never even wanted to!" He was going to add on when he heard footsteps behind him. He knew Sonic wanted to intervene for him so he backed away and let Sonic talk to the bandicoot sisters.
__"Girls, he's told you to leave. You're trespassing," he spoke to them calmly. "A lot of us aren't in a good mood, so just ignore whatever he called you. We're just tired."
__Staci did not look convinced but Perci was nodding slowly. It was clear they were intimidated now that Sonic intervened.
__"Okay then," Perci mumbled shyly as she walked away. Staci took a bit to look at Tails before running after her sister.
__Sonic waited until they were off the property before shutting the door. He then looked at Tails and smiled. "You're welcome."
__Tails giggled as Sonic went back to lay down on the couch and take a nap. T-Pup was still on the couch so it went over to Sonic's side and laid down against him. Tails ignored this as he went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. After taking one sip he pulled out his phone and searched up the local courthouse and wrote down the office number on a sticky note.
__"What you doin'?" He heard Sonic call out.
__"I wasn't kidding about filing a restraining order the next time I saw Perci." Tails pulled out that note and stuck it on the fridge. "That'll fucking teach her."
__Sonic was quietly laughing. "You a savage."
__"Yuh." Tails found himself laughing with Sonic.
__"Can I ask a gross question?"
__"I guess you can." Tails said as he walked back into the living room with his water.
__Sonic was still laying down with T-Pup sleeping beside him. "I'm only curious. How do you deal with your morning wood?" He couldn't stop himself from smiling and laughing.
__Tails fought the urge to smile as he looked at Sonic. "Well, stop reading your erotic fanfictions every night before going to bed first of all."
__Sonic shot him a look. "Hey! That's only every other night for your information." He then shook his head, still smiling. "I'm asking about how you deal with it, bruh."
__"Oh." Tails finished drinking the rest of his water before answering him. "I just keep my mind empty and wait it out."
__"You don't help it out?" Sonic was laughing again.
__Tails groaned. "You're such a child. No, I don't. I don't jerk off like the rest of you horny freaks."
__Sonic looked offended. "Uh! How dare you." He sat back up and was about to say something else when he winced. "Oof! My ass fucking hurts."
__Tails smirked. "Got fucked recently? Who's the lucky guy? Shadow?" He started laughing as Sonic threw the pillow at him.
__"Shut up! I already said I fell down the stairs." Sonic then stood up and started massaging his ass. "Why Shadow?"
__"That's what all your fanfics are about," Tails muttered.
__"Ew! You're nasty!"
__"You're fucking nasty!"