Every overnight business trip or remote mission involved nightly cuddling these days. There weren't very many of them, as most of Doctor Robotnik's work could be done remotely or the mandatory meetings and frankly pointless presentations were held at the Virginia headquarters, but every now and then travel was a necessary evil.
What had changed between the last trip and the current one was that Stone had found himself holding the doctor in a different regard. As in, he now had a massive, soul consuming, heart palpitations inducing crush on the man, and that was terrifying.
As he dragged their luggage in, he forced himself to remember the doctor's words from the very first time they had had this arrangement: purely platonic. Non-intimate.
While the focus had been on Stone keeping his hands to himself and his pants untented, surely that included romantic notions too.
The problem was, while the doctor's asexuality and downright repulsion to anything sexual was easy to respect, it was much harder to fight one's romantic feelings. Sure, he would not try to kiss the doctor. He would not run his hands through his hair. He would not gently rub his stomach – he had earned big spoon rights! – or his chest or link their fingers. But he had no doubt his own traitorous heart would race and his face would turn colours and he would so badly want to do all the forbidden things.
It was going to be sweet, sweet torture and Stone wasn't sure if his heart would be able to take it.
His brain felt like it was made out of lukewarm porridge or some other similarly textured and equally useless substance as he mechanically unpacked the doctor's suitcase for him. Clothes in the wardrobe to avoid wrinkles. Pill organizer on the table next to a glass of water so the doctor would remember to take his medications first thing in the morning. His work tablet next to it. Hygiene products bag in the bathroom. The toolkit could stay in the suitcase. The scissors, water bottle, and bomb materials that the doctor kept in the suitcase to spite the entire aviation industry while showing his government pass to avoid all luggage checks could also stay where they were.
"Stone, remind me to slip laxatives to Major Torres' coffee before the first meeting tomorrow", Robotnik said, sitting at the small dining table and glaring at his phone. "In fact, going to the drug store and buying a packet will be your first job of the day when you wake up at ungodly hours like usual and have all the spare time in the world."
"He wants last minute changes to something again?" Stone asked, glad for the distraction. He started unpacking his own suitcase.
"Of course he does, and he assumes I'll be spending tonight 'whippin' it together real quick' for him. He assumes wrong. Do you suppose someone else would pick up the funding for the project if he went mysteriously missing overnight?"
"I'm sure they would, but you'd be high on the list of suspects and we don't need an investigation disrupting your work, especially over someone that worthless."
"Hm. I'll take that into consideration, meaning you're still on laxative duty in the morning as Plan B", Robotnik said with an amused smirk that made Stone's heart hop on a trampoline and try to impress the metaphorical audience with the sick flips it could perform.
"Noted", he replied, and set his suitcase aside. "Any plans for what little evening there's left?"
"I was going to go over my files for tomorrow's meetings, but Major Torres just made sure it's at the very bottom of my busy schedule, so I think I'll use my invaluable time on solving sudokus or doing crossword puzzles instead", Robotnik said with a decidedly evil hum as he pushed the tablet further away from himself and pulled up a list of mobile phone apps instead.
The lengths this man was willing to go to spite someone. Stone shook his head in amusement and decided that since they clearly had the night off, he could watch an episode or two of his current series.
He should have plenty of time for a romantic panic later.
ooooo
"The big spoon or the little spoon?" Stone asked as he slid between the sheets on his side, secretly hoping for the big spoon, because having Robotnik behind him gave him the least amount of options to feel tempted by.
"I have something different in mind for tonight", Robotnik said and put down his phone. Stone felt a mixture of dread and excitement pooling in his stomach like a heady cocktail. "On your back."
Having no choice but to comply and pray, Stone shimmied down under the blanket and laid on his back, keeping his arms stiffly by his sides while waiting to see where this was going.
Robotnik turned off the lights and climbed in. He crawled over to Stone and draped himself over his chest. His head was tucked under Stone's chin, one arm tossed over his chest and the other curled between them, and one of his legs situated itself over Stone's thigh, shin going between his legs.
Stone's brain sent him a postcard from Puerto Rico. It said "lmfao, good luck!" and the stamp was a cartoon middle finger.
He knew he was supposed to wrap his arms around Robotnik, that's how this position worked, but he was frozen on the spot. His heart was accepting apprentices for its circus; he was probably deafening the doctor with the ruckus it made, too. He was thankful his face was collecting all the blood in his circulation, that should at least keep it from gathering in an even worse spot.
"Stone, arms", Robotnik said, clearly tired of waiting. At least he didn't comment on the heartb- "And consider calming down, or do I need to drug you to lower your heart rate?"
He wanted the sweet release of death.
"Apologies, doctor."
He wrapped his arms around Robotnik and gave him an apologetic squeeze that was sent straight into his own heart as well. Then he took a deep breath and released it slowly, doing his best to calm down for his doctor.
Robotnik hummed appreciatively, which promptly undid all his hard work. So, Stone took another calming breath and closed his eyes.
It was just cuddling. No feelings involved. Only sleeping. He was a trained agent who was (sometimes) capable of controlling his emotions (to an extent), he could do this. He just needed to keep his eyes closed, keep breathing calmly, not move a muscle, not think about how warm Robotnik was or how tender the horizontal embrace was, and he was not thinking about those last two things on his list, damn it!
Calm. Even breathing. Not moving. Robotnik's hair was right under his nose and he could smell his shampoo. He wasn't thinking about that. He was focusing on breathing very calmly.
He noticed he was drawing circles on Robotnik's back and stopped it. Robotnik made a displeased noise so he resumed and earned a light squeeze to his side in return.
His heartbeat was calm, but sending an SOS signal. Thankfully his brain was sipping Piña Coladas, so the signal could be merrily ignored.
He was working very hard on keeping his hands right where they were and not letting them wander to any direction despite the movement he was apparently not only allowed, but in fact encouraged to do.
Robotnik sighed and shifted higher on his chest, nuzzling his face into Stone's shoulder and then relaxing again.
Stone's poor heart was writing its will, leaving everything to the doctor.
And one of his hands was now caressing Robotnik's side, running up and down the entire length, while the other one was holding him close by his shoulders, fingers gently rubbing the spot they rested on.
The good news was, he wasn't murdered for it.
The bad news was, he was pretty sure his soul escaped his body and that might negatively affect his work performance tomorrow.
Be that as it may, his breathing was calm and his heartbeat was under control, so he was winning this.
He kept up the good work until he was certain Robotnik was asleep, then he slowly forced his hands to stop moving and stay in their assigned spots like the good agent hands they were.
Now that the doctor wasn't awake and potentially somehow reading his thoughts, he could let go.
He stared at the insides of his eyelids and contemplated how lucky he was to get to hold the man he had the biggest crush on like this. He had him right where he wanted him, even if the flavor of the situation wasn't quite the one he wanted. And he'd get to do this again and again for as long as they worked together, probably.
Now that the doctor wasn't going to see him, Stone let out a big, wide smile and sighed like the lovesick fool he was.
Come morning, none of this would be mentioned and Stone would slowly and carefully extricate himself from the doctor's hold to go visit the drug store. It was how things had to be.