The wolf and the jackal sat side-by-side together on the couch, looking over the newspaper since there was no television to broadcast into the living room. Things like that were the new normal after the war, at first because electricity was down in many places and afterwards because of broken infrastructure or televisions with no manufacturers to help repair them. The summer nights were still hot and though the fan valiantly tried to fight the heat it only made harder the task of turning pages and keeping them flat to be read. The two of them had been doing this a lot in the past week - being mundane together in a manner so domestic that everything of philosophical importance died away. There was no conflict, nothing to resolve; Infinite almost didn't understand it.
Gadget laughed at something, causing Infinite to look up. They faced each other, Gadget grinning as he spoke of… something. Infinite couldn't tell what; his voice was warped and words warbled together into muffled and incoherent mumblings. His red fur began to glow. It was beautiful but Infinite shuddered at an unexplained sensation of eeriness. It took a while for him to realise that Gadget's fur wasn't just glowing, his whole body and everything on it had an aura of red bleeding off it and ripples and waves of distorted space radiated from him. Then he began to crumble. His body dissolved into tiny red cubes that tumbled over each other like water dripping off melting ice. Infinite watched in horror. He reached out hoping to salvage anything but with one touch the wolf collapsed like a pillar of sand, leaving behind only flecks of red and black whirling around a tiny void like a black hole.
The world went dark and the hand reaching out to his companion touched glass. Infinite looked around. Glass surrounded him in a tube where he floated miraculously, completely contained. In the corner of his eye he saw flickers of yellow movement and turned to it. It was one of Eggman's robot companions—the stupid one. It bustled around him, polishing the glass like it had nothing better to do. A scream came from behind him and he turned around, feeling like he was suspended in water. Rows upon rows of similar tubes filled the room, so many of them that they seemed endless. The anthropomorph just behind him - another jackal - had already melted beyond recognition, the prototype in their chest cracking under strain. Matter peeled away into energy but the conversion remained so well contained that the energy and mass fused into red plasma and filled the tube up. The red robot watched it happen impassively. Then suddenly the energy collapsed in on itself, forming a small space-time tear with those demonic red and black cubes coalescing around it until they settled into a reality-defying block plugging the rip. The red robot wordlessly leaned towards a computerised panel at the bottom of the tube and pressed a few buttons. The tube whirred with the low tone of something powering down.
"Life support systems for subject #125 have been disabled," the robot reported, sounding like it was right next to both his ears at once.
"Good. No need to waste energy, after all."
Infinite's vision turned around without him bidding it and the smug face of the moustachioed mad scientist came into view, smirking up at him.
"Besides, I have a good feeling about a specific subject."
Infinite raised his left hand to stare at it. He had the impression that he was supposed to feel full of power and the world under his control. But when he tried to close his hand into a fist it shuddered instead. Raw red energy engulfed him and his fingers began to melt away, followed by the rest of his hand in an unstoppable cascade of abject failure. A scream of terror ripped from his throat.
That dark lab was abruptly replaced with a dim bedroom ceiling. Slivers of sunlight tried to creep in past the cardboard in the windows. Every part of him felt taut and raw, dried out and hollow as his mind tried to grasp where he was and what was happening beyond the searing pain that flared with every beat of his heart. He could barely register anything around him except for something tight in his left hand. He lifted it, feeling resistance and turned to look at it.
Another hand grasped his back, holding tightly. Black and red contrasted vividly even in the near dark and for a few panicked moments it was all he could register as real. As he squirmed in discomfort he began to pick up more details about his surroundings - the bed and the sheets twisting around him, the fan above blowing air over him, sweat in his fur that was probably the initial source of discomfort. None of it had been apparent before, drowned out by the pain that had become the most prominent part of his life, throbbing in his ears and pulling at his nerves.
"Are you okay?"
Gadget's voice still sounded muffled and far away like he had cotton in his ears. "It sounded like you were having a nightmare."
Infinite glanced at his face briefly and the earnest, concerned eyes slightly magnified by his large glasses but quickly looked back at the intertwined hands. Despite being so tense the physical feeling was enormously comforting. The tension in his muscles wound from his semi-numb fingers, up his arm to his shoulder and up the back of his neck. He body was solidly there yet his drowsy mind irrationally pounded in panic over the possibility that the moment he let go he would melt into oblivion. Holding onto Gadget would be the only thing that kept him alive and real.
"This is starting to hurt now," Gadget squeaked. His voice cut clear through Infinite's head and he sighed with relief at the approach of clarity. He released his grip in time with the breath leaving him. Gadget's hand flexed in his but he didn't let go. "Feel better?"
Infinite snatched his hand away and snorted irritably. He tried to get up fast but the bend in his torso lit a fire under his ribs and urged him to lie back down. Gadget read the tight grimace, even though Infinite didn't make a sound.
"I'll get some painkillers," he said, standing up, "and that sternum supporter. I'll let you come out when you're ready but don't leave it too long. We've gotta go see the nurse at the hospital today, remember?"
He left the room, leaving Infinite in bed clenching his fists over the bed sheets. Before he could have stopped it, a weak little voice in his mind had begged Gadget to stay and only an acute sense of his own pride stopped it coming out. His body felt steadier now but his soul still shook and yearned for the reassurance that it wasn't real, never would be. He growled at himself. He couldn't lower himself to whining for comfort and company like an anxious puppy and he wouldn't wait around to be tended to like an infirm (even though he technically was still infirm). More carefully, he rose his torso, using his arms and abs to support it at a rigid angle and once he was upright he could swivel around, kick the sheet away and stand up. Pain affected every part of him despite only being in one place and he stumbled out of the room. Gadget stood behind the kitchen bench with the pills measured out in his hand while he filled a cup with water. He looked up about to take them back to the bedroom and paused seeing Infinite emerging from the hall by himself to go and sit on the couch.
"You're up," Gadget stated.
Infinite lowered his ears in frustration. Over the past couple of weeks he'd noticed that Gadget had a tendency to make statements out of the most obvious things and the repeated redundancy grated on his nerves. Though he was beginning to suspect that this was a habit he'd developed as result of living almost completely alone. The entire time Infinite had been here he had never seen any neighbours drop in even though he heard them through the walls sometimes. He sometimes saw or heard Gadget on the phone to someone, mostly someone who sounded like they were with the resistance but occasionally there was a random conversation that lacked any sort of importance as far as he could tell from the one side he witnessed but none of those people had visited, at least not since the bat was there. Gadget continued on with his life, chipper despite his precarious situation and eagerly doing as much as he could to indulge his houseguest.
"You can take the painkillers first and I'll get you the rest of your medication," Gadget said, bringing the glass and the pills to the coffee table. "We'll be at the hospital a bit early—I need to drop you off and then report to base for some resistance stuff, so there'll be a bit of waiting around. Sorry about that. Do you want some cereal for breakfast? Or toast with butter?"
Infinite rolled his eyes. Dairy products had come back into the stores this past week. Gadget was stoked. "Sure."
Gadget went back to the kitchen to somehow fulfil that vague response but halfway there a knock on the door made him freeze. It was several quick raps, impatiently fast like gunfire on his door that made his heart drop into his feet. He looked back at Infinite, who just stared back at him with cup and pills in hand and raised an eyebrow.
"Yo, Gadget!" the person on the other side called. Gadget gulped and Infinite's eyes widened. They both knew that voice. "Are you in or what?"
"C-coming!" Gadget answered. He scrambled for the front door before the person on the other side could get impatient again and opened the door just a hand's width, only enough for him to see out and be able to block his visitors from seeing in.
On the other side stood Tails and Sonic with his hands folded behind his head. He grinned at Gadget. "Finally! I was wonderin' if you were ever gonna answer."
"He could have been out," Tails suggested reasonably.
"Out? Who's out at this time of the morning?"
"Currently, we are."
"Touché." Sonic turned his attention back to Gadget and his expression became sly. "So Rookie, how's your 'hot water'?"
Gadget blanched. "I-it's great! Yeah, r-really swell! Warm showers are super great! Um..."
"Are you going to invite us in or do we just have to stand here?" Tails asked.
"Uh, y-y-yeah, um, just hold on a sec, it's a huge mess in here."
Gadget slammed the door. He turned around, bracing himself against it as though he expected Sonic and Tails to beat it down. Infinite took another sip of water, watching Gadget panic with an amused smirk. The wolf nearly leaped off the door and grabbed the white bag off the kitchen counter.
"You need to hide, they're coming in," he hissed.
"Just tell them to wait outside," Infinite dismissed. "Why are they even here?"
"They're not supposed to be here! They were supposed to wait at the base but they showed up out of the blue and now you have to get out of sight before they see you!"
"And where exactly am I going to hide in your tiny apartment?"
"The bathroom?" Gadget thought aloud. "No, they might need to pee while they're here. The cupboard? No, it's got shelves, you'd have to bend over. Just go back to the bedroom. There's no reason for them to be in there. And take your meds."
Gadget thrust the medication bag at Infinite and ushered him to his feet at the same time, herding him to the hall faster than Infinite was willing to go.
"Don't push me around!" Infinite growled.
"Don't ruin this! They still don't know I'm harbouring you here and if they find out now instead of out my own mouth it'll be bad for both of us."
Gadget shoved him back into the bedroom. He was about to slam the door closed but paused as a thought came to him. "Er, you might have to get yourself breakfast since they may now be expecting me to leave with them. Also, you'll have to walk to the appointment yourself. Here, have my spare key."
Gadget hurried down the hall to the end table, which had a single drawer where he kept some of his miscellaneous items. He returned with a house key without a keychain and forced Infinite to take it in hand. Infinite looked down at it curiously as Gadget shut the door in his face. Gadget only took a moment for a big breath of relief and then ran back to the front door to open it. Sonic and Tails were still standing there, Sonic looking amused and Tails looking the exact opposite.
"Okay, you can come in now!"
Gadget stood back and gestured for them to come inside. Sonic sauntered in upon invitation with Tails following him and scrutinising everything as though he might find a clue to expose Gadget's odd behaviour.
"Have you eaten yet?" Gadget asked out of mere courtesy as he shut the door.
"The chilli dog stands aren't open yet," Sonic grumbled. "So, no."
"We both had an energy bar," Tails answered more helpfully, "but Sonic's pretty much always hungry unless he gets the equivalent of twenty chilli dogs in one sitting. Going so fast all the time burns up tons of calories."
"I can't offer the equivalent of twenty chilli dogs but I have cereal and milk," Gadget said. "I haven't had breakfast yet and that's all I was going to have. You're welcome to some if you want."
"It ain't chilli dogs but I'll take it," Sonic said, propping his elbow up on the kitchen bench as he leaned on it.
Tails peered into the kitchen as Gadget turned his back on them to pull out crockery, cutlery, and food. Gadget kept his kitchen quite clean, cleaner than the kitchen ever got at his home he had to embarrassingly admit to himself, though Gadget didn't have as many appliances and other domestic items cluttering the benches. It all seemed nondescript until Tails picked up a detail in the drying rack that he'd glazed over on the first scan. He turned to Sonic, pointing his thumb at it and mouthing: "there's two of everything."
Sonic's grin only widened and he winked. "It's just like I told ya," he whispered.
"Huh? Were you saying something?" Gadget asked, placing everything on the kitchen bench at once.
"Why don't you have a table to eat on?" Sonic said distractedly, scooping the spoons out of the bowl at the top of the stack and picking it up to examine it.
"I've never had one," Gadget shrugged. He took a bowl for himself and poured out some cereal, then passed the box to Tails. "Ever since I moved here I've always eaten on the couch, usually with the TV on."
"Sounds boring." Gadget watched in dismay as Sonic received the cereal box from Tails and poured himself a mountain topped off with the cereal dust from the very bottom. "Is that all you did before joining the resistance?"
"No. I had a job and a hobby and stuff... you know, real life."
"Then you must be what they call a 'regular guy'." Sonic poured milk over the top of his cereal, letting it rise to the rim. It wasn't nearly enough to submerge the mountain but it would have to do. Gadget shook the milk carton, saddened by the quiet slosh of the few mouthfuls left. "Don't think we've ever met one of those before."
"What about Amy?" Gadget asked. "She seems normal."
"Yeah, emphasis on 'seems'."
"Not even the detectives?"
"I dunno. Is being a detective a normal sort of career? Even if it is, they're all kinda kooky in their own way," Sonic rambled around large mouthfuls of cereal. Watching him eat was fascinating in a gross way; every spoonful he picked up was so large Gadget thought it would inevitably fall and create some sort of mess. "Hmm... maybe Vanilla and Cream have a normal life - you've never met them. Tails, do you know if Cream goes to school?"
Tails looked up from his cereal bowl to give Sonic a miffed look. "You know what? Whether or not Cream goes to school isn't the relevant issue here. You're just wilfully ignoring the time bomb in the room. We've been a team these past few months and with everything so broken down as it is keeping secrets from each other isn't helpful and only builds mistrust, especially if those secrets are so petty it's really not worth keeping them."
"W-what are you saying?" Gadget stammered, putting his spoon down so nobody would see it shake from his nervousness.
"Gadget, we know. We figured it out."
Gadget's skin went cold and he stared at Tails like he'd been caught in the headlights.
"Whoa, c'mon Tails, we talked about this," Sonic interrupted. "Be a bro."
"No, Sonic! This isn't fair to anyone and it's stupid," Tails argued. "Gadget, we know about your girlfriend."