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Infinite knew that oil and water didn’t mix. He was almost sure who was who—Shadow, plausibly, was the water, a raging hurricane and a trickling stream and the patter of rain. Infinite hoped that Shadow thought of him as oil, residual on his fingers, the taste of him never quite leaving his lips.
He bit, of course, just to make sure, and Shadow only shuddered, a full-body movement that shook the(perfectly made) mattress ever so slightly. His nose was pressed into the tufts of Infinite’s ear, folded back, red-tipped claws working through the knots of the jackal’s dreads. (Infinite had watched through his apartment window as Shadow meticulously painted them, and knew in that moment he would do anything, rip the ruby from his own chest if he had to, to tear him apart so completely that the polish chipped and flaked away). He lapped at the blood from the bite, welling slowly to the surface. Green. Unnatural. Enticing, alluring, tantalizing. Nothing but destructive for the both of them, so why was it that they didn’t harshly snap and shove each other away?
Well. Infinite supposed he could consider this long-term psychological manipulation. That was enough to justify it, of course. A deeper motive, a way to get under Shadow’s skin, not just with his teeth. A way to study the shape of that smile and those fangs and the exact pitch and rhythm of almost inaudible purrs.
Oil and water could be forced together, he knew, despite the molecular rift, and made into lye. It was fitting. For them, it was pronounced the same.
He curled closer into Shadow’s side, knees pressing into the other’s stomach, threatening to wrap around and suffocate his core. After the ruby, he thought he’d never feel anything as powerful or warm so close to him. Shadow, of course, had an infuriating habit of proving him wrong. He wore lavender perfume, a spritz on each wrist, and if he turned his head Infinite could see the bottle slotted neatly into its place atop Shadow’s dresser. He didn’t want to, though, instead letting his eyes fall shut, listening to the everlasting, spiteful rhythm of Shadow’s breathing.
“You’re cold,” Shadow mumbled, a whisper in his ear, and Infinite moved to pull away enough to snark back in his face. Before he could, Shadow had pulled a blanket over the both of them, a handmade quilt. Infinite could have laughed if he wasn’t stunned. Something about it, a small, mindless gesture to satisfy a need he hadn’t even complained about, shook him to his very core.
Infinite shifted just enough to press a kiss on the still-bloody bite from before. It was soft, sudden, shuddering. It didn’t belong to them. They were not made to slot together so effortlessly like this. A lye.
But backing out would make him weak, and Infinite wasn’t sure if he wanted to either way. Destruction was his craving from the very beginning, and when… whatever this was, or wasn’t, or could be, crashed and burned and tore them both apart he could be remade again, and Shadow would feel the same pain he had after that night.
Infinite didn’t mean to fall asleep, but when he woke Shadow was snoring softly. It melted him inside, as much as he hated himself for it. But. Well. If Shadow, the only being who had ever rivaled him like this, could be just as weak, where did Infinite stand?
He didn’t know. It was terrifying. He truly had never stopped being afraid of him. It was suffocating, and had swallowed him whole long ago. Shadow had always been right, hadn’t he?
Infinite suddenly needed to rip the fear from under his skin. It itched, badly, within his veins. It wasn’t supposed to be there. He wasn’t supposed to—he couldn’t—it wasn’t his.
Desperate, he realized he couldn’t breathe, and sticking his foot out from beneath their shared blanket sent a shiver up his spine. He’d never been so warm, felt so safe before. What was this—who was he—he was dying—
He shoved away, ripping Shadow’s arms from where they were around his neck, ready to suffocate him, ready to hold him oh so gently as they tore each other apart. Infinite almost fell to the floor, shivering and shaking, wrapping his arms around himself as he stumbled to the bathroom, slamming the door, flipping the light. He gripped the edges of the counter, and he couldn’t breathe, staring at his disheveled, ugly face in the mirror, fists clenching, claws scraping the marble, squeezing so hard he wanted it to snap, wanted it all to end—
“Fuck,” he gasped, unable to fill his lungs, and fell back, collapsing against the wall, clutching his arms, ripping at flesh, trying to pull the terror from his veins and permanently stain the tile but it wouldn’t STOP , and as much as he breathed in, gasped, desperately drew in air, it didn’t work, he was drowning, drowning in his own blood and the look in Shadow’s eyes, drowning in the vestiges of his countless failures and crippling terror, paralyzed by that thrumming in his core—that single idea—that one awful, terrifying, thought that had suddenly become his only home—that he might actually care . That the oil and water had burned to ashes, that they were the residual remains, and he had died already a thousand times.
Infinite ripped at the scars on his shoulders and wrists, picking and tearing at them until more blood flowed in pretty rivulets down his back and smeared on his shoulders. He pierced a line right below his eyes, in the bags, heel pressing hard into his cheek to try and feel the teeth through the flesh and mark those same stripes Shadow had on his own eyelids. He still couldn’t breathe, but it was silent, deafening, surrounding him as he gasped for more air, a dripping red ungloved hand(that Shadow had seen, had revealed himself, had kissed each claw—) clutching at his chest, his heart beating faster than his frantic thoughts, whispers consumed by the void of the ocean, of the water smothering the oil, slipping over it, consuming it, even though it made no sense, of the soap filling his mouth, a lie a lie a—
Hands gripped his wrists, pulling them away from his body, and only then did Infinite realize he was crying, wracking his frame, tears dripping down his cheeks and mixing with the blood that stained the white fur of his muzzle. He struggled, begged, snapped his teeth, but Shadow’s hold was steady. He was squeezing his wrists. It was a rhythm, Infinite realized, and Shadow’s breaths were slow, a rhythm for him to follow. He tried, failed, was too weak to even control his damn breathing. Another sob escaped his mouth and he tried to rip his hands away again to cover his face, find his mask, hide behind it where he belonged, the pressure points familiar and cold and safe, (even though Shadow’s arms had felt safer, and that made no sense, he couldn’t—he didn’t understand—).
In . Shadow might have mouthed or said the word aloud, Infinite couldn’t tell. He couldn’t hear anything except for the traitorous beating of blood in his veins. Out . He stemmed his breaths, tried to at least, shaky and shuddering, uncontrollable. Something twisted within him and he pulled his wrists away and yanked Shadow close, pressing their chests against each other, as if his steady rise and fall could smooth him out, make them into something presentable or worthy of existing. The ruby stuck out like a sore thumb, digging into Shadow’s stomach. In. If Shadow noticed the claws digging hard into his back quills, Infinite clinging to him more desperately than he had to anything else in his entire life, (with more strength than he thought he’d ever be capable of), he didn’t react, instead continuing to tap the rhythm on his back and whisper the words into Infinite’s ear, light as a feather. Out .
In, out. In, out. That’s it. In, out.
There you go .
Infinite’s breath shuddered. Shadow’s hands were warm. He had taken off his rings, Infinite realized with a start; they were lying on the floor beside them. Gentle, still bare fingers smoothed his skin, wounds clotting and stitching themselves together messily, and Infinite’s head spun with confusion.
“Why?” He croaked, still shaking, as Shadow pulled away to focus his healing efforts on his wrists.
“I could ask you the same question,” Shadow responded, and was Infinite hallucinating or did his cheeks look clammy from tears? “—but I’d bet neither of us would know the answer.”
Infinite knew. He knew very well. He knew, down deep in his bones, corrupting and tainting every part of him, that he was simply brittle. Why did Shadow pick up his broken pieces? There wasn’t a point.
“I don’t understand you,” he rasped. “You made me this way. I—Fuck, I’m terrified of you, and I hate it, I can’t—“ he snapped his jaws shut, burying the words he wouldn’t dare let slip from his mouth into the crook of Shadow’s neck, the pulse of his heart.
“Look at me, Infinite.”
And he did, eyes bare and burning, a fire that had always been destined to char the both of them to a crisp, to consume and destroy his pathetic, abhorrent body, to bite and snarl and hurt and kill. But Shadow, of course, lived to undo him in every way possible.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“But you should. You have to. That’s—that’s what you’re supposed to do. What you have done, what we’ve done to each other from the start.”
“…I think we’ve both had more than enough of fighting this, haven’t we?”
And Infinite stifled another reeling sob. That pain was all he knew, all they both knew, and Shadow was just going to throw it all away? Just like that? Just to—
For him?
It didn’t make sense. He told him so, again, but Shadow didn’t answer with anything but a disinterested hum. Before Infinite knew it, he had ended up sitting on the edge of the bathtub, staring at the floor as the hedgehog wiped his wounds clean with a wet, soapy cloth. It wasn’t what was meant to happen when they came together like this.
…It felt warm, like something he’d never known he’d needed. Something he couldn’t let go of(was too weak to let go of) now that he’d grasped it, soft and new and so unlike them that it didn’t fit, but gave him a chance to remold and fill the empty spaces. Afterwards, Shadow filed his jagged claws and, of course, Infinite insisted upon forcing the hedgehog to paint them the same as his, if only to tell himself he was reveling in seeing him obey so meekly. After they dried, Shadow helped his shaky form to the bed and it infuriated Infinite to no end.
“You… called me weak.”
“Hm?” Shadow looked up, voice quiet.
“When we first met. And you don’t remember. But you killed my—my squad. And you defeated me. You reduced me to nothing . I’m still just that. I haven’t changed. I—“ Infinite’s voice broke again and he laughed, hollow and trembling, shaking his head. “I can’t even stop myself from falling apart. I have unlimited power, I can bend everything in this reality to my will—but I can’t, I can’t even, I’m too weak to stop myself from crying, from—“
“That doesn’t make you weak.” Shadow interrupted.
Infinite’s head snapped up.
“…What?”
(This wasn’t real, none of it was, it was only an illusion, just like—)
“Crying?” Shadow shook his head. “Crying and showing emotion, letting yourself feel , is not a weakness, Infinite. It’s a strength.” He chuckled, a little melancholic, and seemed to be staring into the distance held in Infinite’s eyes, unfocused. “It took me far too long to realize that. But it’s not. That is not something that makes you weak.”
Infinite sniffled and glared the other way. He didn’t know what to feel. How to feel, even. It made no sense. This wasn’t how this was supposed to—
He hated Shadow. Hated him with every fiber of his being. But in that instant, Infinite knew deep down in the locked-away recesses of his regrettably pulsing chest that he’d never be able to let go of him. That he wanted to remain here, in this paradoxical, nonsensical, awful, tantalizing ideal, in his warm, dangerous, safe arms, for forever.
Shadow’s hand found his cheek. “You hear me, Infinite?” He breathed.
“Unfortunately,” Infinite rasped back, and suddenly felt hollow.
(Was it a weakness? Was it love? Could it be both?
If Shadow said it was okay, then who would Infinite be to back away now?)
In a small attempt to fill the gaping emptiness inside of him, Infinite shakily grasped Shadow’s arm and pulled him closer. It was different from before—or the same, just unmasked, just like his fears and his unsightly face—warm, homely, safe. Shadow slid both of his arms under Infinite’s and hooked them behind his back, and he was smiling. It was small, stupid, incredibly foolish, and ignited a rejuvenating, too bright, too honest emotion in Infinite’s chest.
“You’re cold,” Infinite rasped, and before Shadow could respond, pulled the quilt he had torn in his desperation for false security back over them. Shadow’s breath caught, letting out a surprised laugh, and this time Infinite pulled him close by the chin instead of the waist, reveling in the softness of his chapped lips.
“You’re not, anymore,” Shadow responded, after an infinity. (Another paradox, as precious and devastating as him and soap and soft, biting kisses and the tear tracks staining Infinite’s face). Shadow pressed those nipped eternities to the scars lacing Infinite’s body, still raw from his own formerly jagged claws, now smooth as pure ruby. He pressed them to his wrists, his sides, his shoulders and back, his cheeks, his still-bloody lip, staining it green as well as red. He hummed and purred with satisfaction, nuzzling close, as if neither of them would ever let the other go. Infinite was beginning to fear that was true.
He realized, then, that the only thing he truly feared anymore was the permanence of… whatever this was. He was paradoxically(of course) terrified of both change and the absence of it. Would he remain here forever? Where else would he ever feel so safe? Who else could ever ignite him like this? Wasn’t he above this?
Infinite wasn’t sure anymore, so instead he buried his face into the lavender warmth of Shadow’s fur, feeling their shared purring rumble against each other with the knowledge that, at least for tonight and maybe forever, Shadow was his home.