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It all started two days before the war ended and Infinite was alone in his quarters. This was the most secure place in the Eggman Empire, and he was safe here, yet the jackal had trouble sleeping. It was strange, but it almost felt like... someone was watching him. The doctor didn't set up cameras in his room, he had checked for that many times, but he still felt an unease. Yet eventually his exhaustion from the long battle earlier that day won out against his paranoia and he slept, a general of his caliber needed his beauty sleep, after all.
Yet not much later Infinite had awoken from a mildly homoerotic dream involving the red wolf he had battled earlier, and he was not going to think about that right now. He checked his clock, 3:33am, and still the unease was there. But why?
It was then that his large ears twitched at an unexpected sound. The rasp of heavy breathing. He turned to the source, a corner in his spacious room, and there stood an orange wolf, that Rookie he fought in Metropolis? No, wrong color, no glasses, and that plucky soldier hadn't been wearing an obnoxious yellow "GAMER" hat either…
Infinite was almost convinced that this was a dream or an illusion he subconsciously created, if not for the very noisy breathing emanating from the orange canine. Gold and blue eyes meant soulless amber for far longer than even he was comfortable with, and Infinite wondered what the hell was going on.
The jackal sat up in his bed, ready to face this intruder, who, yes, was creepy as fuck, but he hadn’t been called the ultimate mercenary for nothing. The Eggman Empire had the best security in the world, and somehow this disturbing stranger had managed to get past that, but he could do this, he could get this disconcerting presence out of his room.
But the second he hopped off his bed and into his slippers, the wolf shaped specter morphed into the shadows and disappeared, and no matter how hard he looked that night, Infinite couldn’t find him again.
That was a year ago, now, and after everything, Infinite had practically forgotten the strange encounter that had happened two days before the War had ended. But now here he was, on probation, busy with community service, taking a lot of therapy, and the only real good part, he was with Gadget.
The wolf had been a surprise, for sure. The former Resistance rookie had dug him out of the rubble, carried him to medical attention, vouched for him getting a chance at rehabilitation, and somehow even fell for someone like Infinite. That last point was the real shocker, but Gadget was full of nothing but amazing things, and Infinite couldn’t understand how he got so lucky after all the horrible deeds he had done.
Today, Infinite and Gadget were walking home from a long day of Infinite’s community service cleaning the highway and he was exhausted, but Gadget wanted to stop by the park for a bit to “enjoy nature”, and Infinite couldn’t say no to him. The exhausted jackal leaned against his boyfriend as they sat on the park bench and soaked in the moment, though the ankle monitor digging into his leg and pulling at his fur took him out of the tranquility somewhat.
“It’s just nice, you know?” Gadget said as they sat there. “Seeing things go back to normal, and I get to see it with you…”
Infinite looked up at Gadget at that, and moved his head up to meet him in a tender kiss. Just over a year ago, he would have berated himself for going soft, but now he didn’t know anywhere else he’d rather be.
Then his ear twitched at a sound.
Heavy breathing.
Infinite broke the kiss and turned his head towards the bushes nearby, trying to focus on what could have made that sound, though focusing was turning out to be very difficult because his partner took that as his cue to nip at his neck. But Infinite was resilient, and he briefly ignored that to try and search through the brush. And there he was, looking at him with eyes that were almost the same color as Gadget’s, was that creepy as hell orange wolf looking at them.
“Gadget-” Infinite cleared his throat and the wolf pulled away- “Who is that?”
“Huh? Who?” Gadget glanced over to the now empty bushes behind them, and the jackal swore under his breath.
“There was someone there…” Infinite got up to give that weirdo a piece of his mind, but Gadget grabbed his arm.
“Fin, don’t.” The red wolf said tersely. “Even if there was someone there, beating a guy up wouldn’t be a good look for you.”
“But there was someone there, love.”
“Of course, of course.” Gadget patted his arm. “Hey, let’s go home, kay? I’ll help you make falafel.”
Infinite snorted to himself, Gadget’s cooking was probably the one area where the wolf was lacking, so Infinite made most of their meals, but at least he’d be getting a sous chef tonight. He spared one last glance at the bush, in which he could have sworn he saw a flash of orange, but the jackal was then led away by his boyfriend back to their apartment.
Falafels sounded more appealing anyway.
Which is how Infinite found himself in the kitchen of their little apartment, fishing falafel out of the oil. On the other side of the cramped kitchen was Gadget, who was washing dishes. It was a nice moment, and almost made him forget about the strange occurrence less than an hour ago. The jackal smiled to himself and looked out the window, but instead of being greeted with the nighttime cityscape, there was an orange wolf, with a yellow “GAMER” hat, staring at him.
“Holy Chaos!” He exclaimed, and behind him he could hear Gadget drop what he was washing.
“Fin! Are you okay?”
He glanced at Gadget, then back to the now empty window.
“I saw- there was someone in the window.” Infinite said unsurely, and Gadget gave him a strange look.
“But, we’re on the 6th floor?” Now the wolf seemed very worried, a hand coming up to rub circles into the jackal’s back. “Do you, um, need to talk to someone? Or are your meds-”
“Gadget, I am not hallucinating! ” Infinite yelled, and Gadget held up his hands.
“Sorry, sorry, you aren’t seeing things.”
The jackal sighed, scrubbing at his face. “Apologies, love. I don’t… sorry for yelling at you, I’ll talk to my therapist.”
Gadget chewed at his lip, “I mean, could it be a residual illusion from your Ruby? It was removed but…”
“No, I’ve… seen this person before.”
“What?”
“Briefly, during… while the war was happening.” Infinite rubbed at his eyes. “They have such a strange appearance, they kind of look like you, but more orange than red. Wide, amber eyes, a hideous bowtie and yellow crocs with a hat that reads-”
“-’Gamer’?” Gadget cut in. “That’s- was the bowtie purple?”
“How did you know?”
“My cousin looks exactly like that, Ian Jr. Don’t know why you’re hallu- erm, seeing him, though.” Then Gadget pulled out his cell and scrolled though it for a moment before shoving the screen in Infinite’s face. “This is him.”
Infinite squinted at the screen, and there he was, standing right next to Gadget in the picture, was the source of his torment, those empty eyes staring at the camera lens with nothing but malice. Now he had a name to the face.
Ian Jr.
“I’ll kill h- uh, give him a stern talking to. He needs to stop.”
“I- no, Fin, I am not having you- ugh, how about I just invite him over for a very normal dinner sometime, okay? So you can talk to him and know that he isn’t stalking us. Just don’t kill him, please?”
“...Fine.”
Over the next week until the scheduled “dinner” with his tormentor, Infinite kept seeing that creepy as fuck wolf in the corner of his eye. If he went to the store? Ian was hiding in the chickpeas. Morning run in the park? Ian was in a tree with binoculars. Several times Infinite even made direct eye contact and managed to pull out his phone, but every picture he took was blurry or somehow had his thumb covering the camera. After five days of this he ended up smashing his phone in a fit of rage, thus forcing him to sign up for even more anger management classes. As if two a week wasn’t enough. Ugh.
And worst yet, Gadget never saw any of this. Gadget would try and look where he was pointing but there was never anything there for him to see. Then Infinite tried searching up information on the guy, social media, newspapers, once again, nothing. Also annoying were the new next door neighbors, he never saw them, but at odd times of the night, Infinite would hear what sounded like moving around furniture or drilling, at least Gadget heard that. But no matter how much they banged on their door or the joining wall, those annoying scraping sounds early in the morning didn’t stop. And the loss of sleep only served to increase his irritation with the whole thing.
Then the week rolled by and Infinite finally got off his shift of volunteering at the local library (though “volunteering” was a strong word, due to this being part of his mandated several decades of community service) and was dreading heading home to that hellspawn, and worse yet, that hellspawn in the same place as Gadget. He didn’t know what that stalker wanted from him, and truly, he didn’t want to know, but it also didn’t look like that self-proclaimed “gamer” would be leaving him alone anytime soon.
Except, when he returned to their apartment, Gadget told him that Ian Jr canceled.
“Said he was hunting or something?” Gadget had confusedly explained. “He never struck me as the outdoors type though, but I guess the war changed a lot of people, huh…”
Infinite counted this as his lucky day, as he breathed a huge sigh of relief at not having to see those soulless eyes, and instead could just cook a nice meal for only him and Gadget. But then his boyfriend was called in for some emergency Restoration meeting that Infinite wasn’t allowed to attend so the jackal was stuck feeling bitter once more and eating the curry he spent so much time on alone. Worse yet, as he tried to relax and catch up on the show that Gadget liked so much, that annoying neighbor was making noise again. Some sort of scraping, or maybe drilling sound? Letting out a groan, he got up with the intent of giving that neighbor a piece of his mind. Sure, the person next door had never answered before but Gadget wasn’t here this time to stop him from breaking down the door. Anger management classes be damned if it meant he and Gadget would actually be able to get a full night of sleep for once in several weeks.
He stomped out of their little apartment and to the nearest door, but to his surprise, when he knocked on it, it just swung open, huh, the neighbor must not have closed it all the way, well, their loss because he was going to give them a beat- um, a piece of his mind, yeah, and that didn’t include beating them up, sure, yeah.
“Hello! I only wish to- ah- talk!” The jackal called into the strangely dark apartment, the door creaked a bit more open and he took unsure steps farther into the unit. Infinite heard skittering in the corner and he could have sworn he saw a shadow move around, but once he turned on the light, there was nobody there.
But what he found instead? Way worse.
It was like the decorator got his interior design tips from Stalker’s Monthly , the place was a real creepshow, strings connecting different pictures of Infinite, paper clippings from the few papers that were still running underground during the war that were keeping track of the then-general’s movements. Every wall was covered with his likeness, either photographic or crudely drawn, and in the bathroom of the little apartment, there was a whole shrine to Infinite, covered in candles and rose petals and badly carved wooden dolls. The more he looked, the worse it got. Infinite only glanced in the bedroom, but the moment he saw the body pillow with his image on it he noped out of there and went to the kitchen. That was the only place not covered in images of Infinite, instead it was mostly Gadget. Notes scrawled out, about his… likes and dislikes? But there were also numerous dart boards attached to one of the kitchen walls that were just Gadget’s face with darts thrown at him. On the stove were little dolls with bits of what smelled like Gadget’s fur and a little scraps of green cloth around their small doll necks. The dolls were in terrible shape. Needles rammed through them, shoved into pots of water, burned, ripped apart, all of it messy and obviously done by someone with a grudge. Now that he thought about it, a couple weeks ago Gadget had complained that one of the bandanas that Infinite bought him had disappeared. They thought one of them had just dropped it when they last went to do laundry but maybe…
He gave the scrap of cloth a sniff, yep, this was Gadget’s, alright.
Another eerie scuttling sound and Infinite was out of there. He wasn’t scared, mind you, but… he needed to grab his phone, yeah. Which happened to be still in the apartment and not in this den of obsession.
The jackal bolted the hell out of there and back to their apartment, but his new phone that he had just bought the other day was now smashed into a million pieces on the living room floor. He needed to warn Gadget. Infinite did a thorough sweep of their home, but nobody was there, so he locked up and headed to Restoration HQ. Like hell he’d let Gadget walk in on whatever “Ian Jr.” was doing. Honestly, Infinite was half convinced that “Ian Jr.” was actually a demon wearing a personsuit. Maybe he should buy salt and holy water. He hopped on his small, rusty, Chao in Space themed razor scooter and pushed himself to his destination, the bus would be faster, but that meant being in close quarters with other people and only his boyfriend was worthy of that honor.
Much to his not-surprise, Infinite was accosted at the doors of Restoration Headquarters, And he was even less surprised when Gadget came over to free him and the jackal recounted his experience to his bewildered and non-believing boyfriend. Well, Gadget at least somewhat believed him, the wolf still wasn’t too fond of the accusations against his cousin, but Infinite’s descriptions of the den seemed to visibly rattle him, and he agreed to head back with him immediately. They folded the scooter with the little Chao decorations all over it into the back of Gadget’s car and the wolf sped back to their apartment building.
Rushing upstairs, the couple saw that their neighbor’s apartment door was open.
I have you this time, Infinite thought to himself. Because even if they started to move things out of there, it was impossible for them to have moved all of the little things from the-
The unit was empty.
Nothing could have prepared him for the lack of nothing in there. What happened to the dolls? The string and newspaper clippings? The melted candles and wholeass custom body pillow for Gaia’s sake?! All there was now was solely a sad, empty apartment, painted landlord beige, even the holes that must have been in the walls from the various things that had been hanging up were filled, but how?
“Huh.” Gadget commented. “They must have moved out, not that I’m complaining, they weren’t a great neighbor.”
“Gadget…” Infinite swallowed the lump in his throat. “I swear I was in here, just a half an hour ago! And it was covered in-”
Green glove hands gently grabbed his face, thumbs rubbing along the tufts of white fur on his cheeks. “Fin, you’re stressed, and I’m really worried about you. I mean, maybe there was something here, I don’t know for certain, but do you think you could have had a lucid dream or something like that?”
Infinite growled. “I know what I saw! And I’ll prove it! Somehow…”
“Of course, of course.”
During the next two weeks, Infinite played dumb. Pretended like he stopped noticing the orange wolf with his dumb hat in his peripherals, pretended like he didn’t mind his anger management classes (he was exploding the person in charge of his sessions in his mind), and pretended like he put the whole “neighbor that had a shrine to me got rid of all their stuff in less than 30 minutes” situation behind him. But in reality, he was plotting, scheming, waiting.
After the first time Infinite threatened to kill Ian Jr. his boyfriend refused to divulge anymore information on his cousin to the jackal- for some reason. So while Infinite didn’t know what his boyfriend changed his phone password to yet, he knew he just needed to play along and wait for Gadget to be comfortable enough to open it where he could see. The opportunity came when they were watching a movie that Infinite didn’t really care much for, but Gadget was really engrossed in and Infinite began to “fall asleep” in Gadget’s lap, his dreads somewhat falling in his face to help hide if he decided to crack open his good eye. Eventually, Gadget got a notification from what was likely the Restoration, they were keeping him so busy these days and Infinite really needed to talk to him about not overworking himself at some point… But! Important thing was that it was late and Gadget didn’t even think to cover up his phone as he tapped in the passcode, 2-0-1-7, easy enough. Now to the next step.
It was simple then, waiting until the next day, Infinite heard Gadget go into the shower and turn on the water while he once again pretended like he wasn’t even awake yet, and snatched the wolf’s phone. He felt a momentary burst of guilt as he viewed Gadget’s lockscreen, which was a picture of them on a factory tour of Gadget’s favorite peanut butter brand, the pair wearing matching, dumb peanut hats, but Gadget looked so happy when he took that selfie that Infinite couldn’t help the begrudging smile himself…
Focus, Infinite! He scolded himself. Stop thinking about how cute he is and think only of the task at hand!
Right. Ian Jr. Creepy stalker.
Having dated Gadget for a year now, Infinite knew plenty about him. Like how Gadget kept up to date with everyone’s addresses. Quickly as he could, he scrolled through the contact list until he got to Ian Jr.’s. His eyes scanned and committed to memory the address listed and he carefully positioned Gadget’s phone back on the nightstand exactly as he found it. Then he curled into a ball around his silk pillowcase and pretended to somewhat be asleep. As Gadget walked back into their bedroom, Infinite pretended that he was starting to wake up, and his wolf laughed as the jackal let out a yawn.
“Good morning.” Gadget said far too cheerily for 7AM as he sat on the bed next to Infinite, nudging the ex-general ‘awake’. “You should get ready, they’re having you work at a soup kitchen this week, right?”
“Mm.” Infinite hummed and tried to keep the guilt out of his disposition.
Apparently he had become a worse liar though because Gadget leaned in closer to him, petting a hand over his head and down his ear and the scarf wrapping and protecting his dreads while he slept. “Are you okay, Fin?”
The jackal went into brief panic mode before deciding on trying to distract his partner, and he wrapped his arms around Gadget’s midsection and yanked the wolf with him onto the bed, Gadget laughing the whole way as Infinite buried his face in Gadget’s fur.
“Just tired, working a lot.” He half-lied.
Gadget put a hand on one of the arms circling him. “How about we do something then? It’s been over a year, maybe HQ will let you- well, us- leave the city for a weekend. Oh! We could go to the desert!”
Infinite smiled and was glad that Gadget couldn’t see the guilt likely written all over his face right now. Here Gadget was talking about doing all these wonderful things while the jackal was sneaking behind his back. He had to do this though. He needed to protect them both. The jackal gave his boyfriend a small squeeze before relinquishing his grip and getting ready himself.
"Sure."
Onto the next phase.
He had to wait until his lunch break at the soup kitchen, but an hour should be plenty of time to go to Ian’s place, yell or beat him into backing off, then heading back and acting like nothing had happened. Okay, yes, his ankle monitor would track his movements, but he would find some way to play it off if it came to that.
When break was called, he bolted for the door as normally as he could, which knowing how “creepy” and “fucking terrifying” everyone commented he was, he probably didn’t do that good a job, whatever, they were plebians- wait, Gadget said not to use that term- erm, strangers, yeah, they were strangers anyway.
He took his mighty chariot of a Chao in Space razor scooter and scooted himself to the conveniently close address of Ian Jr.’s house. It was a worn down tiny suburban home with overgrown ivy all around it. A tetanus hazard of a pickup truck was sitting in the driveway, filled with… rope… and a hockey mask… and knives…
Well, the point was, the truck being out here meant that, most likely, Ian Jr. was in there.
Infinite lovingly locked up his razor scooter to the front of the porch and stomped up to the front door, only to find it a crack open. Right, he’d seen this before. The jackal used his fingertips and gently pushed open the door, revealing the inside of the suburban home. It actually looked… Pretty normal. Sparsely decorated, sure, but not too different from how Infinite himself would likely decorate a home similar to this one.
(Gadget had insisted on decorating their apartment, the wolf wished for practically every space filled, not wanting a reminder in his home about how empty his world was for 6 terrible months, and Infinite never got over the tightness in his chest at how those words made him feel-)
Anyway, this house was boring. There was no life to it.
“Hello!” Infinite called out, feeling a sense of deja vu to when he had checked on his ‘neighbor’. “Is Ian Jr. living here? I would like to have a normal, nonviolent conversation with you.”
He sniffed the air, it smelled like a wolf was living here, around his age, and the primary scent was similar to Gadget’s, so a relative of his, certainly. The living room, kitchen, and bathroom all seemed normal, then he went into the bedroom.
There, packed into one tiny room, was all of the items that were previously in the apartment. Clippings, artistic renderings, candles, dolls, the whole, life sized body pillow with his picture on it.
“I fucking knew it!” The jackal whispered to himself.
And that was the last thought he had before something hard hit him in the back of the head, and everything went black.
Infinite awoke to a throbbing head and bound wrists. As he blearily opened his eyes, he found himself sitting on a chair much like the ones that Gadget had bought for their apartment, and his ankles were tied to the chairs legs as well. Glancing at his surroundings, he saw that he was in some half destroyed warehouse, and he wasn’t gagged, which meant that his captor thought that him screaming wouldn’t do much good. Actually, now that he looked, he saw how the space in front of him looked eerily like Gadget’s kitchen and dining room area of his small apartment, but it was crude, like a middle schooler’s attempt to recreate an apartment with only cardboard and thrift store rejects, but the resemblance was certainly there. Directly in front of him was a dining table (also similar to the one he and Gadget had thrifted a couple months ago) and on its cracked wood surface was a plate of… falafel?
“Show yourself, you coward!” Infinite yelled, trying to look around.
In lieu of a proper answer, all he got was the sound of sniffing, someone sniffing his hair.
What. The. Fuck.
Infinite jerked forward against his bindings. “Get off you piece of-!”
A hand was on his mouth then and shoved a piece of falafel in there. He really hoped it wasn’t poisoned, and as much as he hated to admit it, it actually didn’t taste bad… No! This person was a literal kidnapper! And his therapist told him kidnapping was bad! He spit out the falafel (oh what a waste of good food, but he couldn’t risk it) and turned his head as much as he could to his captor. Unsurprisingly, there was an orange wolf with an obnoxious GAMER hat that, in his current state, gave him a headache with its bright color. Infinite bared his teeth and growled at the wolf- and as Infinite got a proper whiff of him he also noticed how this guy was wearing the same sort of cologne that he bought Gadget for his boyfriend’s birthday. How much did this guy know? Actually, considering all the stalking, he likely knew everything.
“Enough games.” He spat out. “What do you want? Why torment me like this?”
To his endless surprise, instead of being angry, the off putting orange wolf smiled and ran over to the “dining table”, where, under the plate of falafel, there was a box that the jackal hadn’t paid much attention to before. Ian Jr. pried off the lid and pulled out- was that a wedding dress? He must have been hit in the head harder than he thought.
“I don’t understand.” Infinite squinted at the cloth in Ian’s weirdly barren hands. Did this guy not wear gloves? Freaky.
The orange wolf sighed and carefully put the dress back in the box before he pulled a photo out of his hat and held up far too close to Infinite’s face. It was a badly photo edited image of a wedding couple, except Infinite and Ian’s faces replaced the bride and groom's faces respectively, little heart stickers also littering the photo. Infinite was pretty sure his brain stopped working for a moment there before he shook his head and looked at the wolf.
“I am actually planning on wearing traditional jackal wedding garb when I marry Gadget someday.” He emphasized, and saw how Ian Jr.’s usually empty face became furious, and pointed more sternly at the hack edit job.
“I am not interested.” Infinite grit out, and Ian Jr. placed the photo back under his hat and grabbed the plate of falafel, instead shoving that in Infinite’s face. “Falafel? Yes, um, it’s a food I like a lot…”
The orange canine pointed at himself then the plate.
“...You made it?” The jackal tried to piece together and In Jr. smiled and nodded before grabbing another piece and shoving it into Infinite’s mouth, he really disliked how good it tasted, and he wanted to spit it out again, but fleshy hands around his muzzle prevented the action. He swallowed the food and glared at dull amber eyes as his face was finally released. “What is your plan here? Just to keep me tied to this chair forevermore?”
His captor shook his head with vigor and put down the falafel plate then waved around the mock apartment, before he pranced up to Infinite and plopped into his lap, wrapping his arms around Infinite’s neck while he nuzzled into the jackal who went stiff as a board. It was always Gadget sitting in his lap, or, if he was feeling mushy, him in Gadget’s lap, not some creepy stranger who didn’t know the meaning of “no”.
Yeah, he’d had enough, he just wanted to go back to Gadget and their shitty apartment with drafty windows and more cacti than they knew what to do with. His head hurt, he was thirsty, he wanted his boyfriend, and more than anything, he wanted out of here and away from his guy.
“ GET OFF!” Infinite yelled, and he felt Ian Jr. startle in his lap as the wolf scrambled off him, Infinite glared at him then. “Listen to me, you will let me go, and leave myself and Gadget alone, and I will then consider not killing you, do you understand?”
But instead of making the wolf angry or sad, his captor seemed to only perk up at the threat, tail wagging swiftly behind him. Foreign hands cupped his face, thumb stroking the white tufts of fur on his cheeks, and Ian Jr. forced their faces together in a bruising kiss. Infinite tried to break away, but the hands were deceptively strong and held him there, continuing the embrace, and now Infinite felt as if he’d be sick-
A force knocked into them both on the side and sent them to the ground- and blessedly also broke the kiss, thank Chaos, the wolf had started to use tongue .
Infinite shook his head and from his uncomfortable position on the ground he looked over to see orange and red clashing together in a wrestling match. Gadget?
“Keep your hands off my boyfriend!” Gadget snarled out as he tried to keep his cousin down.
What a sight he was right now, growling and trying to beat a man up- Infinite would have to have some thoughts about that later, but for now, he tried to focus on freeing himself. Luckily being knocked to the ground partially broke the chair he was on, so if he just tried to wiggle his bonds a bit more-
With another yank, the back of the chair broke and he was able to free himself from the rope, rubbing his wrists and then zoning in on the scuffle happening only a few yards from him just as Gadget gained the advantage and punched Ian Jr. in the face. Infinite quickly swooped in with the rope and forcibly bound Ian’s wrists and legs, and the jackal pointedly ignored how incredibly into it the orange canine looked.
“Sorry!” Gadget breathlessly apologized and he stood and dusted himself off. “Metal was leading a bunch of Badniks into terrorizing New Mobotropolis, and your ankle monitor was cut off so we had to use your backup tracker-”
“Back up tracker?”
“And everyone else is still busy, and… and I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you.” Gadget threw his arms around his boyfriend and held him tightly. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Infinite gave him a squeeze before pulling back and giving Gadget a kiss which was interrupted by a vicious growl. The couple broke apart and looked down at where Ian Jr was looking at them with bared teeth. Rolling his eyes, the jackal gave his short term captor an unimpressed look. “Now what to do with you…”
Ian Jr. somehow perked up at the threat, tail wagging behind him as he waited for what Infinite would do. But the jackal just scoffed and held Gadget’s hand.
“We shall just be calling the authorities on you, don’t look so excited.” Infinite explained as Ian Jr. deflated. “I’m not the kind of person who throws people off buildings anymore.”
Ian Jr. looked extremely disappointed with that, no longer gazing at Infinite like he had hung the stars, now his stare seemed to be that of someone looking at an old jacket that had lost all of its appeal. But he was all tied up and Infinite preferred to spend the least amount of his time thinking of him as possible. Instead, he turned to Gadget.
“Are you alright, though?” The jackal asked as he carefully looked over his boyfriend’s face.
“Oh, I’ve had worse, you know that.” Gadget let out a little smile and Infinite tried not to feel guilty as he leaned forward and gave his boyfriend a kiss on the cheek. “Now let’s call the Restoration and- Holy Chaos!”
Infinite moved his eyes to where Gadget was looking- that was, where Ian Jr. was previously tied up- only to see nothing on the ground but the rope.
“How- did he just-!” The wolf sputtered out.
At this point Infinite was truly way past done with this whole situation and his brain felt like it was on the brink of melting from all the bullshit he had been enduring. “He has a tendency to do that, now, how about you treat me to some kebabs?”
Gadget was obviously unsettled but still shot his boyfriend an annoyed glare. “Why is it my treat? Is it because I didn’t believe you?”
“It’s because you didn’t believe me.” Infinite answered smugly, giving Gadget another kiss to show that there were no real hard feelings. “Now let’s get out of here, this place… unsettles me.”
“But what about Ian? Shouldn’t we be worried about him?”
Infinite shrugged. “I believe I’ve lost my allure to him, but we should get a restraining order, hm?”
“Definitely.”
And with that, the two men made their way out of the dingy half destroyed warehouse, to get kebabs and also to look into moving to a new apartment. But the most important thing was that they were together, and wasn’t that just wonderful?
After all, it's not like Ian Jr. would be causing them anymore trouble.
Metal Sonic stomped to his “room”- which was just a glorified closet with a charging port and small computer- and slammed the door behind him. He almost had it! The destruction and chaos he created was immense, and would have been more so if not for his loathsome copy and his almost equally loathsome friends. The robot plugged himself into the charging port and sat down, giving himself a quick reboot before he would start calculating new ways to destroy his organic inferior.
After his reboot, he found himself thinking much clearer now, and now he could formulate the most proper way to destroy his enemies...
Interrupting his scheming were his sensors which narrowed into what sounded like organic respiratory rhythm right outside of his door. And in the small gap at the bottom of the door his optical input identified what seemed to be yellow... crocs outside of his door.
And then the breathing got louder.