Chapter Text
Stone lay in the grass of a field somewhere south of nowhere and watched the Cannon's remnants rise in the evening sky. Hello, Doctor.
"Hello, Stone."
He sat up and watched Robotnik approach, frowning under his black moustache. He breathed in and his lungs filled with a gentle warmth.
"Moping again?"
"I suppose."
"How original."
He looked back at the Cannon. His brow furrowed. Had he grown his hair out again? When he looked back he was the version he'd seen last, all red clothes and soft smiles.
"I'm sorry," said Stone.
"The pity party's unnecessary, I assure you." He sat down and offered his hand, palm up, and added, "I'm here."
Stone took his hand. They were silent for a while. Silent, save for the wind and the birds calling to each other. He sighed, contentedly, and rested his head against Robotnik's shoulder.
"I missed you."
"I missed you, too."
He ran a thumb over his hand. The sensation was muffled, like he was wearing gloves. It occurred to him that he was dreaming at the same time that he realised he was waking up. He closed his eyes, like that'd help anything, and tried to bring the feeling of their fingers intertwined to the front. He was aware of his body back in his bedroom for a moment, even as the visuals sat on his eyelids, before the dream finally dissolved.
He woke up so hollow he was nauseous. He opened his eyes and stared at the wall in front of him. He was vaguely aware of being cold. He adjusted his shirt where it bunched up to show his stomach. It was big on him; he'd pilfered it from Robotnik's wardrobe when he went through his things. TO AVOID INJURY, it read, DON'T TELL ME HOW TO DO MY JOB. One of Robotnik's favourites. He pulled the blankets up from where he'd kicked them off overnight. He didn't manage to sleep again.
He got up. He made two coffees. He sat across from one and let it go cold. He went to the (formerly a guest bedroom) lab. The Badniks stored inside powered on as he entered and observed him from their shelves. He'd found as many of Robotnik's abandoned projects and blueprints as he could, and the walls were lined with screens displaying them, with a workbench in the centre of the room. Some of them were almost finished, some of them were prototypes, and some were an idea scribbled in the margins of a post-it note. Robotnik had given him the world. All that was left was to build something that would let him take it. Most of the lab was tidy, but the workbench was occupied with half-finished parts and lengths of wiring. He was working on one of Robotnik's last ideas—a robotic upgrade of Sonic, built to surpass him in every way. He sat at the bench and worked until sunset. He cracked his knuckles, then his back.
He took the elevator downstairs, nodding vaguely to his neighbour (what was her name, again?) when he saw her in the hallway. He'd rented an apartment in London. Where could he go, except for right where he left him? He'd managed to salvage most of their things from the Crab, save for some of his books that got soaked through, but its systems were flooded. He didn't think he could live there anymore, regardless. It was too haunted.
He walked to the alley between his apartment block and the next. He went out there every evening. At first it was just to think, and to get some fresh air after being in the lab all day, but he'd taken to feeding a stray cat. She watched him from the shadows, sometimes hissing. She was here first, he supposed. She was all black, and her fur was matted in places. A lot of the neighbourhood strays were obviously being fed, but she was skinny, worryingly so. Nobody, he supposed, wanted to deal with the occasional scratch. Nobody except him. He opened the cat food pointedly loud and her eyes appeared out of the shadows. Her hackles were up. He knelt down and filled her bowl. Her backed up to put some distance between them. She crept closer and sat down to eat.
He looked through the gap between the two apartment blocks, past the buildings down the street and the patch of darkening sky above them. Framed between the blocks and peeking out from the top of the skyline, the Cannon rose. It glowed like a miniature supernova.
He got on his motorcycle and drove until the sky was black. He didn't know where he was going. He just wanted to be somewhere else. He drove until the air was salty and the waves sang choir with the traffic in a soft hiss. He sat on a wall overlooking the beach to eat the fish and chips he ordered. He wasn't really hungry, but he hadn't eaten all day and he knew he needed to. He looked at the ocean. The Cannon's reflection danced in the waves. They did this, once. When they were visiting Australia they found a beach near a small town and ate fish and chips by the beach. A seagull stole one of Robotnik's fries right out of his hand. He swore revenge on the entire species, shaking his fist. Stone bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. He spent the rest of the meal fending off seagulls with his cane.
He looked up at the Cannon and realised he couldn't eat. He left the rest to the seagulls and went back to his apartment.
He woke from another dream. He got up. He made two coffees. He came home from the store with more cat food and opened some in the alley.
"Hello, little one," he whispered, when two greenish yellow eyes peered at him from the shadows.
He knelt down and emptied the tin into the bowl. She'd been letting him get closer recently, and this time she sat down to eat before he backed up. He smiled, slightly.
"The doctor doesn't like animals much," he muttered, "but I wonder if he'd mind if we kept you."
He stopped. No. Of course he wouldn't.
He looked at his hands for a moment before turning to the horizon. The Cannon rose above the skyline, red as ever. When he looked back, the cat had crept closer. He froze. She sniffed at his knee. He tensed, and the movement was enough to startle her. Damn it. She hissed and retreated into the dark. She sat down and pressed into the bricks further away from him, grooming herself. That was the closest she'd ever gotten.
He stood up and went inside. He hung his coat by the door, walked into the kitchen to make dinner, and almost jumped out of his skin.
"Shadow," he breathed. "You have to stop doing that to people."
"You wouldn't be so surprised if you were more observant."
"I was distracted." He stared at him. "You're alive."
"Yes."
Stone's mind started to reach before he could stop it. "I didn't think anyone could survive that. But if you—"
"No."
Stone looked at him, sharply.
"There wasn't time," Shadow continued, softly. "I'm sorry."
"Oh."
He felt like he'd skipped a stair and landed too heavily an extra step down.
"You can sit down," he managed, gesturing to the bar stools by the kitchen island. "Do you drink anything? Tea, hot chocolate? Coffee?"
"Tea is fine."
"Good choice." He turned the kettle on and leaned on the kitchen island whilst waiting for it to boil. "Any particular reason for teleporting into my apartment unannounced, or is this just how you get your kicks these days?"
"I've been looking for you."
"You found me. Gold star."
"I was wondering how you were feeling."
"Oh. That's sweet." He attempted a smile. "I'm—I don't know. Fine."
"Ah."
"It's just, it's muscle memory. Loving him, I mean." He picked up the cup from earlier and sniffed it. He pulled a face and poured it down the sink. He washed it out. "It's like moving houses. I knew where all the furniture was so I wouldn't fumble around in the dark, making noise and waking him up. And now I don't. The whole universe shifted half a foot to the left."
And nobody else cared. He'd been front page, social media breaking, every channel on TV news for a week, and then it was like it'd never happened. They mourned him in a distant, grateful way, because the Earth would be ash without him, but they kept going with their lives. It wasn't fucking fair. The rest of the world kept spinning on its axis, but it shouldn't have been possible for a universe without Robotnik to exist. The last time he'd thought he was dead it was during his fungal exile, and it'd only taken a few days of living in Green Hills for the gossip to loop around to him and for him to learn that he was alive, just away. He was waiting for the same thing to happen. He was waiting for the laws of physics to repair themselves and bring him back. It was a question of survival, he supposed. His brain was trying not to rip itself apart.
"I... I know."
For a moment he wanted to snap and tell him no, he didn't, but if anyone knew it was Shadow. He poured the tea and put their mugs down, then sunk into the bar stool next to him. He ran a finger around the rim of his cup, idly. They sat in silence, sharing an ache.
"I know what it can do," Shadow said, meeting his eye, "if you allow it."
Stone's brow furrowed whilst he waited for that to sink in.
"I'm not planning to go scorched earth, if that's what you're talking about. The doctor and I never were. No offense, but that was always your thing," he said, waving a hand, dismissively. "What happened to that, by the way?"
He breathed out, visibly relieved. "I had a change of heart."
"I see." He decided not to pry.
He thought about it for a while. How out of place he must feel, in general. Nevermind grief. He was fifty years out of time.
"Oh my god," he muttered. "You missed The Cure."
"The cure for what?"
"No, no. It's a band. You're going to love The Cure."
Shadow made a face at him, but he still accepted when Stone offered him a wireless earbud so he could put on a few songs. He leaned against the counter, eyes closed, looking like he was about to fall asleep. He hadn't shared any music with anyone outside of Robotnik for ages. He watched him vigilantly, trying to gauge his reaction. He opened his eyes again after a moment, ears twitching, before settling in with his ears tilted forwards on instinct. He seemed to like it. Stone let himself relax for a moment. He zoned out and let the music take his mind wherever it wanted. They sat together until they finished an album, and Shadow told him he was going home. His apartment was empty again. The room seemed bigger without him.
He got up and washed their cups. He went to the lab. Hold it together. He touched one of the screens on the wall and brought up the blueprints he'd been working on. They still had some notes in the corner in Robotnik's handwriting. Stone—that's your bit. DO NOT fuck it up. It was such a stupid thing to feel sentimental about, but he couldn't help it. His muscles were too tired to hold him together anymore. He slumped into a chair. He'd harboured a daydream about Shadow showing up on his doorstep to tell him Robotnik was fine, he was just in hospital, and he could see him again if he followed him there. But, no. There was a hollow in the middle of his life that he had to try and build around like it wasn't there. He was suffocating in the vacuum of it.
He was gone.
It bore a hole through his lungs and into his sternum. His chest hurt like it always did before he started crying, but this time it burned. He tried to protect him. He tried, but he never listened. His face went hot. He needed to scream, hit something, anything but sit here, crawling head first into the black hole between his ribs.
"For Christ's sake," he muttered. "Damn it!"
He shoved everything off the workbench in a shower of clatters and thuds. He stood up and marched through his apartment to the window overlooking the Cannon. He opened it and stuck his head outside. He gripped the windowsill until his knuckles hurt.
"I never asked anything of you!" he yelled. "I just wanted you to stay!"
The Cannon stared back, unfeeling. Idiot, idiot. He didn't know who he was angrier at.
"If you'd just listened for once in your fucking life, but you—and now you're—"
He ran out of steam just as quickly as it'd built up.
"Was that too much to ask?" His voice broke. The sky smudged like an impressionist painting as his eyes welled up. "Was I too much?"
He barely had the energy to stand. He stumbled, with his hand brushing over furniture or leaning against the wall for balance, to his bedroom. He sunk into bed. A sob rose in his throat like bile. He was a raw nerve held to an open flame. He reached for his pillow and held it to his chest, with his face buried in its fabric. He dug his fingers into it, reaching for warmth he wouldn't find. He just wanted to go home. His stomach hurt with the force of his sobs. He cried himself out after a while, and his body was so exhausted that it gave in and he fell asleep, still in his clothes.
He drifted in and out of sleep for a few hours before he finally got up to get into his pyjamas and brush his teeth. His head hurt, his eyes hurt, his stomach hurt. He took a painkiller, but it didn't help much. He brought his heat pad to bed and sandwiched it between himself and his pillow. He curled around it. He cocooned himself in his blankets until it was just the top half of his face sticking out. The heat seeped into the hole in his chest. Tears sprung to his eyes again, half relief and half longing. It soothed him enough to sleep. Dreamless, for once.
He didn't get out of bed the next day, except for when he had to. He didn't eat. He just lay, hollow, letting the realisation settle in. He wouldn't have gotten up the day after, either, if not for Shadow. He couldn't see him, but he felt the rush of energy through his apartment. He ran a hand through his hair to smooth it out and threw a robe over his pyjamas, but he still looked like a mess. He found him in the living room.
"Shadow," he coughed. His voice was hoarse from crying.
He'd invited him over so they could keep an eye on each other. He was already regretting it.
"Stone."
He smoothed his hair again, like that'd improve anything. Robotnik scolded him for the unprofessionalism in the back of his head.
"Do you want another cup of tea?"
"Thank you."
"I forgot you were coming. I'm sorry about the pyjamas."
Shadow furrowed his brow at him. "I don't care."
He tossed Shadow an earbud so they could listen whilst he worked on the tea. The motions were soothing, and so familiar he could zone out entirely, rambling between songs.
"They never made something like Disintegration again." He put the cups down. "The other albums are still worth a listen, but it's not quite the same. Anything else you want to hear? There's a lot of stuff from the nineties I think you'd like. Oh, the doctor really liked this one."
They let the music play, wordlessly. Stone stared into the steam. He could still see him dancing to it, black jacket swishing through the lab. And, later, robe swishing through the Crab, demanding Stone come dance, too.
"It's... Interesting."
"It'll grow on you. I didn't like it when it first came out."
"Do you have anything older?"
He passed his phone over to him. "Sure. Pick your poison."
Shadow typed something in and hit play. It was a classic to him, but he supposed for Shadow it must've only come out a few months before everything. The realisation shifted his sense of time, and for a moment he heard it like it was new, like he was a kid in the car listening to one of his fosters play music from their own childhood. He looked at Shadow's face. He looked peaceful, for a second.
"She used to sing me that one," he said. Stone felt the ache in his voice keenly. "Hers was better."
"I'm sure."
He played another of Robotnik's favourites. They swapped songs for a while, barely talking. It was—nice, actually, once he got into it.
"You know," he said, when he'd woken up enough to realise how long it'd been since his last meal, "we'd probably both feel a lot better if we ate something. Do you eat ice cream?"
"I'm not from 74 B.C."
"I'm going to take that as a yes."
He served them a bowl each and sat back down to eat. He didn't realise how hungry he was until he started. He made them both toast afterwards. They swapped songs for a while longer whilst Stone did the dishes. He felt the silence when he went home. Wherever Shadow's home was. He hadn't gotten around to asking.
He got up and went to his lab. The Badniks buzzed around him, radiating concern. He pet the side of one of them.
"I'm better now," he told it.
He picked up everything that had fallen off the bench and rearranged the parts so they formed a robotic skeleton. His stomach panged with guilt when he saw the pieces back in their place. He hadn't meant to take it out on him. He wasn't conscious yet, he was just a pile of bolts and metal, but he was Robotnik's. He adjusted the angle of his head so it looked more comfortable. He swept up the floor. He put his tools back in their places. He swept the floor again in case he'd missed something. He paced around. He swept the rest of the house, then cleaned the kitchen until he was almost calm. He took a too-hot shower and let the steam roll against him. It was evening by then. Oh, damn. He'd forgotten to feed the cat yesterday. He put on a clean pair of pyjamas and threw a jacket over them to go outside. He was greeted by a yowl when he entered the alley.
"Were you hungry? Oh, little bean," he said, affectionately. "I'm sorry. Do you mind if I call you that?"
He put her food down. She approached him more quickly than usual with her tail up in greeting. Did she rely on him? Did she need him around? He tilted his head to look at her stomach. She was starting to round out a bit.
"Maybe I could keep you," he muttered. "The doctor can't say no. He's—he's gone."
He reached down to grab the bowl when she was done, but she flinched.
"Look, it's just me." He held his hand still in the space between them.
She tilted her head and sniffed along his hand. Her nose made contact. He froze entirely. She rubbed her face against his fingers, eyes narrowing slightly. The fur along her cheeks was soft. His index brushed just under her eye and it almost knocked him over. She had to have known how much a sudden movement could have hurt. She slunk away, out of sight, but the warmth in his chest stayed.
"Oh." His face cracked open into a grin.
He got up. He almost made two coffees. He remembered in time. He drank his and watched the rain through the window. It kept up all day, until the thunder got so close it rumbled the building's floors. He counted the pause between the crack of light that slipped, silver, through his curtains and the rumble afterwards. It was almost instant. It was Little Bean's dinner time, though, and he wasn't going to let her fend for herself in this weather. He pulled an overcoat on and went outside. A shiver went through him the moment the rain hit his face. He pulled his coat closer to him. It bounced off his shoulders audibly.
"Little one?" he called, above the hiss of the rain.
She didn't appear. He looked around. She was always on time. Her internal clock kept better time than analogue ones.
"Bean, c'mon."
He paced up and down the alley. The sky lit up like it was daylight for a moment before the lightning faded and the thunder came. Come on, come on. Where was she? He checked around the trash cans. There was a faint sound from behind him. He spun around. He melted with relief.
"There you are."
Two eyes stared at him from under a soaked box someone had dumped by their trash can. She was drenched and her fur clung to her in wet clumps. She moved like being alive was heavy.
"Poor thing." He put her food down.
She meowed at him again, more loudly this time. He knelt down to watch her. The forecast said it'd be like this all night. Did she have somewhere to shelter? Had she only slipped out for food? It didn't matter, because she was so wet that she wouldn't dry out for ages if she was left outside. He just wanted her safe.
"You're going to hate me for this," he said. He'd wanted to wait until she trusted him more.
He pet her back, then slowly moved his hands around to her side. He grabbed her. He picked her up and tried to hold her close, but she yowled. She dug her claws into his shirt. He winced.
"You've," he winced again, "you've got some powerful claws on you."
It stung once when she scratched and again when the rain dripped into the cuts on his arms and chest. He wrapped her up in his arms until she was a barely visible, drenched pipe cleaner under his jacket. He dashed to the elevator and mentally begged it to go faster. He stepped out into his hallway.
"Mr Stone?" His neighbour stopped, key in hand.
"Good evening, how are you, gotta go, I'm sorry, bye."
He ducked his head close to his chest and made a run for his door. He shifted all of Bean's weight to one arm. She doubled down on her escape attempts. She squirmed like she was boneless. He dug his key out of his pocket and opened his door right as she escaped. She landed, feet first, on the mat. He slammed the door behind him. She scanned the room. She disappeared under his couch. He stood motionless for a moment, breathing heavily. Blood mixed with water and dripped down his arms, followed the curve of his fingers and landed on the welcome mat. He shrugged off his overcoat. He was down to torn shirtsleeves. He washed up in the sink and bandaged his wounds.
He stood in the middle of his kitchen, still dripping water, and realised he'd just done something very stupid. He'd be lucky if she ever trusted him again. Even if she did, he didn't actually have anything for a cat, and he'd need to take her to the vet, and—no. One thing at a time. He turned up the thermostat so she could lay by the heater and dry off whilst he went out into the rain again to pick up some supplies from the nearest pet shop. He came back drenched. She was nowhere to be found. He put out her litter box and some more food.
He didn't see much of her for the next few days. She came out for food, then returned to her hideaways under the furniture. He found her curled up behind a Badnik one afternoon, and she watched him whilst he worked on Metal. He left the heating on in the lab when he went to bed.
He woke up in the middle of that night. He rolled over and let a hand dangle over the side of his bed. He startled when something nudged it and he reached under his pillow for his control gloves. His brain woke up the rest of the way and he looked over the side of the mattress.
"Hello, you." He gave her his hand again. "Is that where you got to?"
She let out a small meow. She sniffed his hand, then butted into his palm. He pet her between the ears, lightly. Her fur was dry again. It still needed a brush, but he could deal with that in the morning.
"Have you forgiven me for the crime of bringing you off the streets and giving you actual meals, or would you like to go back to diseased pigeons?"
Another meow.
"Yes, I know, I'm the meanest man alive. You're talkative, aren't you?"
She pushed further into his hand. She was—well, it was more of a soft vibration below his hand than a sound, but—she was purring. His breath caught in his throat.
"I thought you'd hate me."
She slipped out from under his hand and lay down on the bottom shelf of his bookcase with her cheek squished against the spine of one of the books. He sat up in bed and watched her, smiling. Did she know he was trying to help her? She must have. Was that love? Trust? It was all semantics. She knew that, if she needed something, he was there. He picked at one of the bandaids on his arm, absently. She was worth the scratches.
He got up to get a glass of water. He passed by the window and watched the Cannon outside of it. His heart pressed against his ribs, warm and aching at the same time, like a sore muscle. All the anger melted out of him. Of course Robotnik couldn't give up his one chance at a family just because of a phone call. There was a part of him buried somewhere—maybe near his sternum, the same place Stone felt it—that longed for love. Was it enough to only have it for a moment? They'd never find out what they were like as friends. He tried to picture it. Late nights in the lab, giggling because everything was funnier when they were exhausted. His head against Robotnik's shoulder as they watched a movie. Robotnik, smiling at him like he did during the livestream, all soft and—affectionate. It hurt too much to look at. His eyes welled up again and his breaths came out as sobs.
No. No, it wasn't enough. If the universe wasn't going to fix itself, then he would. He just needed to figure out how.