(CNs: Reference to trauma, consensual kink, bondage)

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It was that time of night where it’s hard to pin down whether it’s late at night or early in the morning, but I couldn’t have told you that even if you managed to pry my attention away from my computer monitor to ask me. Said monitor was the only source of light in my lab, its faint glow barely revealing the normally vibrant color of my fur. I had a bad habit of getting engrossed in a project and not noticing the passage of time. The chirps of crickets and nocturnal birds came in through the open window near me, as did the pleasant chill of a summer night’s breeze. Both were largely lost on me, although I did smile subconsciously at the feeling of the breeze tickling between my fur.

“Yeah, that’ll work!” I announced decisively, pushing my chair back from the desk and turning to... no one. I blinked in confusion. Hadn’t Sonic just been here? A quick glance at the clock revealed that no, no he had not. That had been almost six hours ago. Heck.

Go to bed, little nerd, a voice that was not my own but was just as familiar chastised me affectionately from inside my own head. He didn’t even have to be here for me to know exactly what he would say.

... it couldn’t hurt to at least assemble all the parts I needed, right? I’d just get my workstation set up. That way it would be ready for me tomorrow.

“Lights.” The overhead lights came to life in response to my voice command, illuminating the rest of the lab instead of just the meter or so around my computer desk. I made my way over to the storage shelf. As I was gathering the parts and tools I would need, my gloved hand brushed against something I hadn’t been looking for but suddenly found myself fixated on. A coiled length of rope.

It wasn’t something I needed very often, and I never really gave it much thought, but something made my attention linger over it now. I had quite a few unpleasant memories that involved rope or other forms of restraint, but those weren’t on my mind right now. Or, at least...

There were times, when I was restrained that I had... confusing feelings. They were easy to ignore in the moment because my mind was usually on more important things like escape or survival or staying vigilant for an opening to help a would-be rescuer (usually my hedgehog)... but those confusing feelings tended to leave an impression. Fortunately, none of my captors had ever picked up on it. I mean, who would?

A familiar sound accompanied by an equally familiar blue blur snapped me out of my ruminations. "Sonic!" I cried out with a mixture of delight and sheepishness as the blur resolved into my hedgehog.

I wouldn't describe the look on his face as angry, not exactly. But he was definitely in a taking no shit mood. "'Yeah, sure, I'll be done in a few minutes'?" he said.

I blinked in confusion, and it took me a beat to realize he was repeating something I had apparently said earlier. "Oh! Um. Sorry..."

He ruffled my headfur and pulled me into a reassuring hug. I melted into the embrace as he said, "Hey, it's okay. I just worry about you. You need your sleep. And I'm not always here to make sure you get it."

"You're right," I agreed, chastened, as I stepped back from the hug. "Let's go to bed. This'll wait til the morning."

He grinned, and as usual I found myself smiling back. "I thought I'd have to drag you there. I still might, you know. Say, what's the rope for?"

... WHAT? I looked down and found that the coil of rope from earlier was in my hands. I didn't even remember picking it up. "Oh!" I kind of panicked and tossed it back on the shelf carelessly. Not carelessly, actually. More like it was a snake I was worried might bite me. "N-nothing!"

Sonic regarded me with an incredibly skeptical look. Shit, I hadn't played that cool at all. I frantically tried to think of something to say to make that entire interaction make any kind of sense, but before I could my hedgehog shook his head and his expression changed to one of resolve. He scooped me off my feet and into a bridal carry. "Bed. Now," he announced sternly, and before I knew it we were there.

As I cuddled up against him and drifted off to sleep, I knew we were going to be talking about that tomorrow if he remembered it.

***

The early afternoon sun provided more than enough daylight as I worked diligently in the kitchen. I had woken up before Sonic did, which wasn’t exactly uncommon, but was a little surprising after an almost-all-nighter. As much as I had wanted to just stay in bed and cuddle with him, there had been a plan to put in motion. And here I was, putting it in motion.

A quiet alarm dinged on my tablet, and I silenced it with a touch. That would be the motion sensor I set up in the bedroom this morning before I slipped out. No, I’m not in the habit of having a motion sensor let me know when my boyfriend is waking up. Don’t look at me like that. This was a special case.

I checked the chili which had been simmering for about an hour, getting really close and sniffing it, and smiling with satisfaction at the aroma. Perfect. I started assembling two plates of chili dogs for both of us--extra cheese on mine, per usual.

I had the plates on the table by the time Sonic emerged from our bedroom. Well, technically it was my bedroom, but seeing as he stayed here as much as he stayed anywhere, I had always thought of it as our bedroom. He stretched, yawned, and rubbed his eyes as he made his way towards me. I felt a fresh pang of guilt as I wondered again if he had waited up all night for me before he finally lost his patience.

As he got closer, he sniffed at the air and grinned, obviously catching a whiff of the chili dogs. They were hard to miss. “Good morning!” I greeted him cheerfully, pulling a chair out for him and hurrying back to the kitchen to fetch us drinks and napkins. “I made us breakfast!”

“I can see that,” I heard the smile in his voice, but also a little tension. “Listen, Tails--”

Nope. Wasn’t gonna give him the chance to start. “Sit down! I’ll bring everything,” I interrupted. Hoping he would get distracted as soon as he started devouring his chili dog.

“Thanks, little buddy,” he sat down, but didn’t start eating right away. “Listen...”

Well. I guess I’d have to try harder. “Here you go!” I interrupted as I returned, setting the napkin and a glass of water in front of him.

“... Tails...” he attempted again.

This wasn’t going well. I cheerfully ignored him, hoping that I could just force my way out of this conversation. “Hey, after we eat, maybe we can go for a run? I could use the fresh air after being cooped up all night last night. Sorry about that, by the way. I just lost track of time.”

“Tails, stop.”

My shoulders slumped and my ears drooped. Okay, this plan hadn’t been one of my better ones, but I didn’t exactly have a lot of time to develop it! And I certainly wasn’t used to scheming against my hedgehog. Now that I had been stopped in my tracks, though, I felt awful for how I had been acting.

“I’m sorry,” I told him genuinely, staring down at the table. “I was being a huge jerk, wasn’t I?”

His hand found mine, and I relaxed a little. “Buddy.” There was tenderness and concern in his voice, and I looked up to find him looking at me with a much softer look than I had expected. “It’s okay. Calm down. I love you.”

The tightness in my chest relaxed, and I actually found myself smiling a little. “I love you, too,” I answered, feeling more and more weight being lifted off of me by the second.

“Now. Can we talk about last night?” my hedgehog asked with a gentle, reassuring tone. I had been dreading that question, but now that it was out in the open it was a lot less scary than I had built it up to be. “It’s okay if you don’t want to just yet, but I promise there’s nothing to be scared of.”

I hesitated, nodded, then hesitated again. “... can we eat first?”

His sudden grin was all the answer I needed.

***

The dirty dishes were still on the table as we cuddled on the couch after. It started out with his arm around me and my head on his shoulder, but before we even started talking my arms went around his shoulders and I basically curled up against him. His free hand found its way to my head, his fingers running through my fur.

“Mmmm... I thought you wanted to talk,” I teased as he pet me like only he could, knowing better than anyone how to make my brain turn into mush.

“Just want you nice and relaxed, little buddy,” he reassured me. “Who’s a good foxboy?”

I grinned, and whined, “Me!” in a very dignified way, and was rewarded with even more firm scritches and pets. His hand found its way to my cheek, stroking my whiskers. He didn’t let up until I was so relaxed I was basically limp against him.

“You feeling okay, now?”

“Mmmm,” I answered lazily. “Biiiiit of an understatement...”

“Good. Now, can you tell me what was up with the rope?”

I took a deep breath. Here we go.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, a little frustrated with myself. “I... I’ve been having... feelings. And thoughts.”

I heard the smirk in his voice. “You have a lot of those, little buddy, that’s not exactly narrowing it down.”

The gentle teasing felt warm, and helped me relax even more. I sighed, bracing myself. “I guess... uh... it’s like...” He squeezed me closer, and it was like he squeezed the words out of me. “It’slikeIactuallyliketheideaofbeingtiedup.” Heck. There it was. I had been holding that in so tightly, and it was just... out there, now.

“Yeah?” he prodded gently.

I didn’t realize I had been holding my breath until then. I took a deep breath, then looked up at him. “That’s... weird, right?”

There was an agonizingly long pause while he looked at me with obvious confusion, but he clearly read that on my expression so he managed to reply, “... not... really?”

I blinked. I wasn’t really prepared for that response.

Sensing I wasn’t going to be the one to continue the conversation, Sonic continued, “A lot of people like that, I think?” He squeezed me reassuringly. “And even if they didn’t, you like what you like, so what?”

“Yeah, but...” I gestured helplessly. “You know... I’ve been kidnapped more than once.”

“And did you enjoy that?”

“No!” I answered immediately. “Oh.” I felt silly.

Sonic pulled me into his lap, and wrapped his arms around me protectively. I sighed happily and relaxed against him, my cheek resting on his chest.

“But you’re right. You have been through some really bad stuff involving being tied up. And so have I. So if we decide to play this way together, we have to be really careful.”

My eyes shot open. “If we... what?” I pulled back a little to look him in the eyes. “You’d... do that with me?”

He grinned cockily. “You know someone I’m gonna trust to do this with you more?” He hastily added, “I mean, if you want me to, that is.”

“YES!” I blurted out embarrassingly quickly, then blushed fiercely under my fur. “Um. I mean. Yeah. I guess that could--”

My extremely successful and well-thought-out attempt to recover and play it cool was thwarted when Sonic affectionately ruffled my headfur and pulled me close again. I sighed in defeat, but smiled, enjoying the closeness.

“But like I said. We have to be careful. And communicate. Deal?”

“Deal!” I agreed enthusiastically.

He held me and we were quiet for a while, but once we were both feeling better he broke the silence with, “Now. I seem to remember my little genius saying something about going for a run?”

***

It was unquestionably weird going on a run together after that like it was a totally normal day, but the rush it provided really did help ground me, like it always did. We said hello to animal friends, rounded loop-de-loops, and just generally enjoyed ourselves.

We had already turned back when Sonic let me catch up to him and run alongside him. As I turned my head to look at him he grinned and I grinned back. The sight of him next to me with the scenery around us blurring past made me feel so hecking good.

“Ice cream?” the grinning hedgehog suggested.

“Yes!” I agreed emphatically.

His grin widened. “Race ya there!” And then he turned on the afterburners and zoomed ahead of me.

“Hey!” I cried out, laughing. “No fair!”

I launched myself into the air with a powerful jump and started spinning my tails furiously, charging after him from above.

***

One extremely unfair race that therefore didn’t count later, we were walking back to my place while eating our ice cream cones and holding hands. Discussing extremely important issues that held serious implications for us as the world’s foremost protectors of good and justice.

“I do not understand how you could ruin perfectly good chocolate ice cream like that,” I teased him, wrinkling my nose in melodramatic disgust.

He dropped my hand to clutch his chest in mock betrayal. “Chocolate might be the best, but it’s even better when you add strawberry!” Oh no. I already knew where this was going before he delivered the mic drop. “Remind you of anybody?”

Don’t worry! I recovered admirably. “That’s very sweet, but if you’re going to compare me to an ice cream flavor I’d rather you aimed a little higher.”

He grinned and shrugged. “I thought aiming for one I loved made plenty of sense.”

Damn. He was on fire today. I held my free hand up in mock surrender. “You win, I’ll stop criticizing your obviously wrong ice cream choices.” But I was smiling fondly. Heck, I loved him.

We had barely gotten inside when Sonic zoomed over to the stairs in a blur--the wind in his wake ruffling my fur--and struck a cartoonishly seductive pose. Leaning on the wall, free hand on his hip, grinning cheesily. It was impossible to tell how much of that was genuine and how much of it was him hamming it up, but as the world’s foremost expert in this field, I would estimate about 50/50. Actually, more like 100/100. 100% serious, 100% hamming it up.

“Hey,” he beckoned me.

I rolled my eyes hard to take attention away from my blushy grin. “Not so fast, Speedy.” I grabbed his hand and led him towards my lab. “If you’re serious about doing this with me, we have homework to do first.”

“... you’ve gotta be kidding me.”

When he realized the “homework” was reading about safety he was a lot less inclined to complain. It was all stuff we already knew, like avoiding pressure on major nerves and joints, but it was still worth reviewing! It also suggested using a special kind of rope that we didn’t have, but I figured that would be ok.

I got really fidgety towards the end of that. “Alright,” I said, my voice sounding a little tight even to me. “I guess we’re ready.”

I felt his hand on my shoulder. I noticed at the same time that I was stimming, my left leg bouncing up and down with nervous energy. “Are you sure you’re ready? You don’t have to be.”

I swallowed, and gave him a grateful smile. “Thanks... but yeah. I really want to do this. I’m just, y’know.”

He leaned in and kissed me, and my leg stopped shaking. “Yeah,” he confirmed as he slipped his arms around me and gently swept me out of my chair. “I know.”

We were upstairs in a flash. He set me on the bed and disappeared again briefly, only to reappear seconds later with unfamiliar rope. It looked a lot smoother than the kind I had in my lab, and it was blue.

“Did you--?”

“Disappear, buy this, and reappear so fast you never noticed I was gone? Does that sound like me?”

We grinned at each other. We both knew it sounded exactly like him.

“Well? Let’s do this!” He stepped closer to the bed, and I inhaled sharply with excitement. I looked into his eyes, and without either of us saying anything further, I presented my wrists to him.

The second the rope touched the soft fur-covered skin on my wrists I gasped with excitement. He looped the rope around my wrists slowly, which was obviously for my benefit. Not really his style. I recognized the tie from what we had read earlier as a double-column tie. Nice and simple, and aesthetically pleasing. I liked the way the blue rope looked on my fur. That thought made me blush.

My hedgehog tugged on the rope experimentally to make sure it was secure, slipped his fingers under it to make sure it wasn’t too tight on my wrists, then asked, “That feel good?”

I swallowed, and nodded. Oh, yeah. It felt good.

I felt his hand on my shoulder, looked up to meet his gaze. “You okay?” he asked warmly, reassuringly. I nodded again. “Are you having trouble speaking...?”

I blinked in confusion, then giggled with embarrassment. We had read about subspace earlier, but I wasn’t really expecting it to happen to me, least of all just from the first tie. I started to say so, but Sonic put his index finger on my lips in a shushing motion, grinning. “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, little buddy. I’ll take care of you.”

Fuck. Fuck. I felt my brain turn to goo at that. I looked up at him with vulnerable, trusting eyes and nodded quietly.

He put his hand on my chest gently and lightly pushed me down on the bed on my back. And then he got to work securing my ankles together as well. I felt a thrill of excitement as I was rendered even more helpless. I loved trusting him this much, showing him I trusted him this much. It wasn’t anything we didn’t both already know, but... getting to demonstrate it so concretely... it felt good.

Once he was done tying my ankles he checked them like he had my wrists, again asking, “That feel good?” And I nodded. I heard the smile in his voice as he said, “Good,” and stepped back to consider his work. “Hmmm. Think we’re almost there... there’s just one last thing...”

Before I had time to wonder what he meant, I felt him grabbing my tails, felt rope against them. Oh. Oh.

“Is this okay?” he asked gently. I nodded. “Do you want me to?” I nodded again, a bit more emphatically. 

There wasn’t an obvious tie for this one, since there weren’t a whole lot of Mobians walking around with twin tails that they could use to fly, but my hedgehog did just fine improvising. He worked slowly, and gently, and I had plenty of time to savor the rush of excitement as I was rendered completely helpless.

“That feel good?” he asked again, and I gave him one last nod of confirmation. “Good. Now you’re definitely not going anywhere.”

He sat down on the bed next to me, and pulled me onto his lap. I curled close to him, awkwardly. His hand was in my headfur immediately, petting me. I “mmm”ed happily and relaxed in his lap.

“This is nice. I wouldn’t have thought of it, but...” he scratched behind my ears, making me squirm with pleasure, and then I felt his fingers lightly grasp one of my sensitive ears, rubbing it between his fingers. I squirmed with pleasure. “I can just keep you here, nice and safe, huh?”

He gathered me into his arms and pulled me against his chest. I felt so small and helpless, but it felt good. I felt protected in a way I never had before. He noticed my cheeks were wet before I did. “Whoa! Buddy, are you okay?” he asked, pulling back and looking at me with concern. “Do you want to stop?”

“No!” I insisted, hushed but urgent. “Please. Just hold me.”

He did. He pulled me into a tight embrace, and pet me. I sighed with relief and relaxed in his arms. “Thank you,” I murmured quietly. “This is...” I was at a loss for words, not exactly a common occurrence for me.

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” he reassured me. “I’ve got you.” I nodded gratefully, and lapsed into silence while he held me.

I wasn’t sure how long he held me like that. At some point the swell of emotions that had overcome me wore off and I was back to being just completely blissed out. “Thank you,” I murmured again, but didn’t burst into tears this time. I’m very cool.

“You ready for me to untie you, now?” he asked, and I nodded.

He gently laid me on the bed and untied me just as slowly as he had tied me. Again, this was clearly for my benefit. As each length of rope was unwound from around me, and my limbs gradually returned to my own control, I just let my body sink onto the bed, not wanting to move at first. Or maybe not able to? I was still in that special headspace I had been in before. I still felt not really back in control. And I wanted it to last as long as it could.

Sonic snuggled next to me and pulled me into his arms, and I did shift a little to snuggle against him comfortably, but then I was motionless again, just soaking the whole thing in. He seemed to understand that, and just held me for a while.

It wasn’t until I finally pulled back a little and gave him a grateful smile that he broke the silence. “How was that?”

“It was perfect,” I told him sincerely. “Thank you so much for doing this with me. Sorry if, um.”

He silenced me with a kiss, and squeezed me reassuringly. “Don’t. You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. I’m really glad you enjoyed yourself.”

I sighed with relief. “Thank you.”

I rested my forehead on his, or maybe he rested his on mine. I don’t know. I was still pretty overwhelmed. I hesitated. “Did you, um... did you... like it?”

He pulled back and looked in my eyes so I could see his reassuring, steady gaze. “I don’t think it’s really my thing, but I liked doing it with you. And I wouldn’t mind doing it again sometime, if you’d like.”

I smiled broadly. “I would really, really like that.”

“Anything I can do better next time if we do?” he asked.

I considered that. “I wouldn’t say ‘better.’ This was perfect for a first time. Maybe sometime we can try having you tease me a little more? Make fun of me for letting you tie me up, for wanting you to? That kinda thing?”

He grinned. “Oh, that I think I can try.”

I leaned in and kissed him. I just couldn’t help it. His lips felt soft against mine. I kissed him gently but insistently, just drinking up all the intimacy I could while I was in this supercharged receptive state.

“I love you so much, Sonic,” I whispered between kisses.

“I love you, too, Tails,” he whispered back.