Happy New Year :3

Gadget had to drive more carefully in the city. The cracked roads were littered with potholes and trash piles and the occasional fire pillar from a gas pipe that still hadn't been fixed. The two arrived at a brick apartment building, built 11 storeys high. Gadget drove around to the back to a large iron-barred gate, where he stopped to search for his own set of keys in his belt pouches. Despite how old it looked the gate trundled open with the press of a button from a keychain remote, squeaking the entire way. Beyond it the driveway ramped downward to a dimly lit underground parking area. Gadget took an empty space labelled with the number 37. He shut off the engine and applied the kickstand then waited patiently for Infinite to crawl off the back. He seemed to do worse at it than he did getting on.

"Are you even allowed to park here?" Infinite asked, voice quietened by pain.

"Sure I am. It's my spot, I just don't have my own vehicle. I have a push bike." Gadget said that last part almost as though he were proud of the fact.

"The more I learn about you the lamer you become."

Infinite tried to walk away from the bike but pain made him nearly delirious. His vision swam and he couldn't work out where the exit was. Gadget's body sidled up under his arm with one arm around his back again.

"I've got you," he assured the jackal. "I'll show you my apartment."

Gadget guided him to the elevators and Infinite took careful note of the number he pressed for his floor. The elevator was a lot faster than Infinite expected it to be in what he thought was an old building, making a short ride to their stop. The doors opened with a pleasant ding and Gadget led him down the corridor to a door with the number 37 pinned above the peephole. The wolf unlocked the door and pushed it open.

"Well, this is home sweet home," he said, flicking the light switch. "It's not much but for the time being you can call it home too."

Infinite's eyes roamed over the apartment, taking in every detail of it. It was very small, built with the intention of housing one person at most. The front door opened into an open living/dining/kitchen room with the tiny kitchen space to the left of them minimally segregated from the rest of the room by a bench looking over the main sitting area. In that living space Gadget had his entertainment system mounted on cabinets with no doors but half of their hinges where they should have been, a straightedged coffee table with a chipped veneer, and one three person couch. Behind the couch a narrow hall that was little more than an annex of space would take them to the rest of the rooms, which consisted of nothing more than a bedroom, storage cupboard, and bathroom. As Gadget helped him hobble into the room and settle down on the couch a very apparent detail kept his eye.

"There's a hole in your living room wall."

"Heh heh, yeah, there kind of is."

'Kind of' wasn't the right term to describe it. There was a huge hole in the living room wall that started at the ceiling and went all the way down to the floor. It probably even encroached on the neighbour below. Gadget had cleaned up around it well but the breeze and heat from outside blew in unimpeded. At the suburban house there had at least been a drop sheet taped up to hide the missing part of the house from the inside, Gadget hadn't even done that here. Infinite didn't pry more on the subject; any question he could ask he already knew a likely answer to. Instead he kept his eyes on Gadget as he put down the medical bag and then went into the kitchen to get a cup and fill it up with water. He returned, putting the cup on the table right in front of his guest and then going through the white paper bag for a box of painkillers, rambling the entire time.

"I don't know how it happened, or even when exactly. I wasn't home at the time - which is probably a good thing otherwise I could have been really badly hurt - but since I've come back I've been really busy with the resistance and trying to help out people in need that a few things have been kinda left the way they are. I have managed to clean up all the mess but it's going to be a while before I can do more than that, replacing all the things that were broken and the like. The whole world was affected so it's not like there's even anybody further afield who can lend a hand to get things back up and running any faster."

Broken. That word struck a sore note. Infinite looked away, staring at the cabinets and wondering how Gadget could sit there and ramble at him like a stranger, like he hadn't been there at the centre of the conflict. He knew how big the Eggman Empire had gotten, he practically built it. With the Phantom Ruby he was the crowning jewel of the empire. He had the whole world at his mercy and under his thumb. Nations fell and cities burned with only a thought. He had been untouchable, unescapable, undefeatable, a god on earth for how much power he had. Gravity didn't touch him, nor any other force for that matter. He had been weightless and free to control himself around the world like a child among his toys, a heavenly being of creation, everything he built he could knock down on a whim. That world of dreams was gone and now here he was, left with a faulty heart and sitting on an old couch in a tiny apartment staring at cabinets that were supposed to have glass doors and held a video game console and a soundbar but no television. The pain in his chest burned like a furnace fire. It felt like hell. He'd fallen from the top all the way down to the lowest pit and upon hitting the bottom he had broken.

He was so caught up in his own thoughts it took him a moment to register that there were a couple of pills being offered right in his face. Again he wanted to refuse but again his body made his mind weak. He took them and nearly choked trying to swallow both of them dry until Gadget shoved the cup into his mouth and poured it down his throat in a panic. Enough made it in to chase the pills down but most of it spilled over his muzzle and up his nose. He coughed and spluttered, each spasm making his chest sear like the scalpel was slicing through over and over again.

"Sorry..." Gadget mumbled, pulling back to hold the cup in his lap. "Please don't do things like that."

Infinite coughed a bit more, trying to hold back but the weaker he forced his coughs to be the more his diaphragm wanted to expel. "Just... let me be... you made it worse."

"No I didn't! You're not supposed to take pills dry."

"I have taken plenty of pills dry in my life. All you did is make a mess." He wiped at his face and around the scar on his chest to remove the excess water but it just spread even more. Gadget gulped and stood up with the cup. There he went, making him feel horrible again.

"Are you hungry? I have some canned soup I can heat up and I'll get you some more water," he said. Infinite didn't respond, so Gadget just went to the kitchen to do what he'd suggested.

In the kitchen he moved slow and sluggishly, as though he was already exhausted. He made two bowls of soup from one can and put them in the microwave to heat while he dispensed more water from a filtration system on his bench. It was a basic design - a red bucket on the top had the parts to strain the water into the reservoir beneath. Water still came out of the taps in most places but it had become undrinkable due to the pollution and infrastructure damage caused by the war. Gadget counted himself lucky that the worst he had to put up with in his apartment was a slightly muddy colour and that he could still use it so long as he filtered it first. In some other districts tap water ran with an unpleasant odour, was brown or black, or ran as sludge rather than liquid. Until the issue was resolved, filtered or bottled water was the only option.

Gadget didn't try to make another conversation with Infinite once he returned with the full cup. The microwave's high-pitched beep called him back quickly to retrieve the bowls. He put a spoon into one and picked it up with a tea towel to carry over to the coffee table then went back for his own bowl and settled against the kitchen bench to eat it. He caught Infinite eyeing him strangely but the black one didn't say anything, instead picking up his own bowl to eat. It had been a long day. Gadget realised this as they ate in silence on opposite ends of the room. An intense meeting that morning followed by the hospital visit in the afternoon and then that personal disaster in the evening. Infinite had battled him the entire time they were together with his stubborn refusal but he was showing signs of changing his tune. He let Gadget drive him home in the end and took his pills. Gadget smiled. He could break through yet.

It remained silent between the two of them when Gadget collected the empty bowls and cup, the only sounds in the apartment being the whoosh of the ceiling fan blades and the city noises outside. Gadget's bed would be big enough for both of them but he figured Infinite would probably want to sleep alone. There was no reason to push him, they'd made enough progress for today. He washed their few dishes just to get them out of the way before going down the hall to get a spare blanket and pillow for his guest but as he did it dawned on him that having Infinite sleep on the couch wasn't the best thing. What if it was too uncomfortable for him to sleep well? What if it forced him to sleep in a way that hindered his healing? What if the painkillers numbed him enough to make him feel like he was capable of climbing out the living room hole? If he left in the middle of the night while Gadget slept away peacefully in his bedroom he might never notice the jackal leaving and he'd be long gone by the time Gadget awoke. He walked fast back to the living room, a niggling thought telling him that Infinite could be doing that right now. However, he was still there on the couch where Gadget had left him. He was lying down with his legs up on one armrest so that his upper body could lie flat on the cushions. His eyes were wide awake but dilated and distant from the painkillers' effect.

"Hey," Gadget said softly, putting the linen on the coffee table as he knelt beside the couch. "You can take my bed tonight. It'll be more comfortable."

"I just got comfortable here," Infinite retorted.

"I insist," Gadget told him firmly.

Infinite growled but complied nonetheless. He lowered his legs slowly from the armrest to the floor lifting his torso up at the same time but keeping it as straight as possible until he was sitting up. Gadget offered a hand to help him. Infinite slapped it away and stood up on his own, shuffling around the couch to the hall. Gadget went ahead of him to open the only door on the left wall of the hall and scurried inside to start turning down the sheets before Infinite got there.

Gadget's bedroom was basic like the rest of his apartment. Adjacent to the door he had a cabinet for his shoes and at the end of his bed a dresser for his socks and gloves. There were two windows on the opposite side of the room but the glass had been smashed out and Gadget had covered the jagged frames with cardboard. In the corner opposite the door Gadget had his desk and computer with a printer and scanner next to a pile of papers of varying size held under a paperweight shaped like a fat penguin.

Infinite sat down on the edge of the bed where Gadget had pulled the sheets aside for him. He bent down to get to his shoes but thought better of it when pain stabbed through his chest despite the painkillers.

"I can do that for you," Gadget offered.

Infinite side-eyed him. He lifted his feet one by one onto the edge of the bed to loosen his shoes and let them drop onto the floor beneath him. Then he turned to Gadget with a smug but tired look. The strong painkillers were taking the energy out of him. He didn't bother with his socks as he lay down. The world faded. He thought Gadget asked him something but he wasn't sure—he must have been a lot more tired than he thought.

Gadget had never before seen someone literally conk out the moment their head hit the pillow. He chuckled with amusement, knowing it was safe to do so. He rolled Infinite's socks off and took off his gloves and scarf, leaving them on the other side of the bed for when he woke up, then pulled the sheet up to tuck him in. Gadget lingered there, looking at his guest's face knowing what kind of angry expression he would probably be wearing if he'd been awake to witness himself being treated like a child. His imagination was helped by the fact that Infinite didn't really have a cute sleeping face. The scruffy fur around his muzzle and the white hairs on his face scar hardened him even with his eyes closed while his eyebrows appeared perpetually pinched even when relaxed. It seemed that no amount of drugs could change his mood. Infinite didn't even smile in hospital and before that he always had that mask obscuring his every expression.

"I wish I could imagine what you look like happy," Gadget murmured.

He stood up and switched off the light as he left, giving Infinite some blessed darkness for a good night's sleep.