Disabled Sonic

It’s escalated now to Sonic being caught up in a crater, and breaking his spine at a high level (but just low enough to still have the use of his arms). Tails found him, and felt his broken spine protruding through his back, knowing he was going to be in a wheelchair the rest of his life and was never going to run again. As he lay in the crater with Sonic, he was already designing the wheelchair in his head.

Sonic’s disability is severe. He has a shattered spine, zero trunk stability, and he cannot hold his body weight at all, he just… folds, the second he’s sat upright. His upper body collapses immediately onto his paralysed knees without support. The sight of Tails seeing his hero folded over his motionless knees, knowing this is his natural body form now, has destroyed his life, and he often cries when he sees Sonic like this, and hugs him in his folded form to tell him he’s still wanted, and he’s still loved.

Sonic uses a powerchair, and is strapped into a 4 point harness every hour of the day to give him the trunk stability he’s lacking. But even with the tightest harness restraints, Sonic still folds over into the harness with a permanent hunch. He has limited use of his arms due to the straps being so tight, but can use his hand to control the joystick on his powerchair.

Sonic lives with devastatingly painful nerve spikes that Tails has to manage by sensory touch, ruffling his quills and doing a hand-lock.

When Sonic became injured, Tails created the “hand-lock” ritual, where they sync their hands, every single morning for 60 seconds, and at the end of the sync, Tails ends it by placing their joined palms on the arm rest of the chair, a silent vow to say “I’m in the chair with you” Because Sonic has no feeling from the chest down, and cannot be hugged easily due to his 4-point harness pinning him back into the chair, Sonic and Tails use the “hand-lock” throughout the day, as Sonic’s only support through the pain of living with such an extreme disability.

He has to have pillow supports all around him in bed to stop his natural body fold and be placed in a side-lying tilt to support his shattered spine.

Tails is his full time carer. He manages the morning ritual of the manual transfer into the powerchair, checking for pressure sores every morning, putting on his sneakers, brushing his quills, doing the 60 second hand-lock, and even devastatingly he has to manage Sonic’s toiletry needs several times a day, whilst holding his torso up so Sonic doesn’t fold.

They live in a world where people with disabilities are treated cruelly. Sonic is now seen as a broken toy and an object, Tails is the only one who still sees his brother as being the same Sonic as from his childhood.

Terrible things happen in this story. Sonic is sent memes of folded objects with his face edited onto it, Eggman emotionally abuses him saying he’s “ugly and unwanted” and he hurts himself, someone Sonic thought loved him ignores his texts once she sees him folded, one night, he’s having a massive nerve spike when alone in bed, he texts the person he thought loved him, saying he’s in a lot of pain from a nerve spike, he pleads in the text “please talk to me” and when she doesn’t answer, the phone slips from his hands, he cries, feeling completely unwanted. Tails finds him like this 😭 another scenario someone throws Sonic in the trash treating him like a broken toy no use to anyone anymore.

Tails suffers from 16 years of emotional grief of seeing his brother’s life “stolen” from him. He’s never gotten over seeing his brother in a wheelchair. He often manifests the “old” runner Sonic there with him, overlapping the two Sonic’s. Sonic even has to mask his own grief to help Tails. He creates a cardboard cutout of his old able-bodied standing self, and places it in the reflection of the Tornado, so Tails can see the “standing” Sonic still looking over his shoulder as he works, just like the old days, instead of seeing his disabled brother in the reflection, and ending up in tears as they speak. Sonic being the sweetheart he is, sends Tails texts from the corner as he works, pretending to be the old, able-bodied standing Sonic “talking” to him over his shoulder in his old form, just like the old days 💔 And then there’s scenes where Tails braces Sonic into a “stand” holding him up, Sonic is so much shorter now, and they’re like “this is how it should have been, every day”

Guys, guys! I’ve just headcanoned the saddest Sonic disability AU ever, it’s absolutely devastating and I’ve been sobbing thinking about it 😭

I can’t give too much away as going to be making it into a story. A rough outline-

Sonic goes into a crater to save the day from Eggman’s latest scheme, Tails watches from above in the Tornado, on Tails’ handheld device he tells Sonic to get out as the ceiling is about to collapse, Sonic instead, gave him a thumbs up and big cocky grin and then goes into a spindash, seconds after, a big white flash of light appears and then there was… nothingness. Tails goes in to save Sonic and a very emotional scene unfolds when he touches Sonic’s lower back…

The accident leaves Sonic paralyzed from the waist down, and will never walk again. 

Tails creates a ‘Hand Lock’ vow, where he interlocks Sonic’s hands with his, for 60 seconds, no words spoken, and then the ritual ends with Tails placing Sonic’s hand on the wheelchair armrest with his. A silent way of saying “I’m in that wheelchair with you, every second of every day” “I’m still here, and you’re NOT going through this alone” they do this ritual every morning, for the rest of their lives, before they start their day and Sonic gets into his wheelchair. 

Very emotional scenes follow of Sonic being treated cruelly by Eggman, Sonic thinks his life is over, Tails is striken by survivors guilt. 

We skip forward to 15 years later, Sonic accepted his fate by year 7, that with every anniversary that comes, he’s never getting out of his chair, it’s going to be his lifeline forever. He’s generally happy with his life and has acceptance. That doesn’t mean he’s not still grieving for his past though. But he wears his hero mask every waking second that he’s with Tails. He only takes the mask off when he’s alone, and thinks Tails can’t see him. He’s so selfless, he doesn’t want Tails to sink further into depression by thinking Sonic misses the old version of him. It would destroy Tails even more than it already has. 

Sonic’s injury however, has destroyed Tails’ life more than Sonic’s. He suffers PTSD and survivors guilt. He watches the 6 second video captured of the “old” standing Sonic’s final moments, seconds before his cruel fate, over and over, he treats it like Sonic’s final “goodbye” to him. Tails still loves disabled Sonic unconditionally, and only sees him as “Sonic” not as “standing Sonic” or “wheelchair Sonic” but, he cannot come to terms with what happened. He cannot look at Sonic and see him in a wheelchair unable to run. 

The story has some very sad/ emotional scenes where Tails becomes obsessed with Sonic standing, that we see some things happen (again, I won’t post spoilers). 

Sonic spends years watching his brother grieve. He spends years trying to tell Tails he’s “fine” and that he’s “happy” but that the old “standing” Sonic is never coming back, he’s gone forever and he has to find acceptance. 

But because Tails blames himself for the accident for not getting to Sonic in time, and blames himself for not being able to fix his spine, and watching Sonic unable to do all the things he used to love, Tails has no life. All he does for years is pity Sonic, and traumatise himself by watching old video footage from the old days. 

Sonic thinks the old, able-bodied Sonic died in that accident. He’s a “ghost” or the “other guy”

Sonic can’t move forwards with his life despite having acceptance of his disability, because he has to watch his brother destroy himself with grief every day over losing the old version of him. So Sonic feels “lesser” because he thinks Tails only wants the “old” Sonic and not him. 

Then one day, now that Tails is older, an idea comes to him that can give Sonic his life back, something he couldn’t do when he was young. 

And it’s only then, when the world is finally fully accessible for Sonic again, that the grieving stops, and Tails has acceptance. His acceptance comes 15 years after the accident. 

And it’s only then, Sonic can be his normal self again too. Not only for the gift at Tails has given him, but for having his brother back. A brother who has finally accepted his cruel fate and from now on will treat him normal.