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For the first time since the first power outage caused by Sonic years ago, the lights in their laboratory has dimmed. Bright reds and blues appropriately forgone. This time it's intentional, thankfully so. A shared decision, like the diminuendo lo-fi music thrumming in the background, like the surgical equipment laid flatly by a makeshift, metal table. None of it's outsourced, all previous stock. Silently, Robotnik is grateful that Stone was dutiful with their budget allocations, regularly updating their belongings per month.
Stone was given two hours to get ready. To lay everything out, to change outfits into some offensive scrubs. A brainless (hah) part of Robotnik would have liked to argue that Stone doesn't need all that nonsense. The hairnet, the double-covered surgical gloves— it's all semantics, he'd argue. Robotnik knows that even if he'd ask Stone to operate on him blind, he'd do so with the precision of a ballerina.
“Have you taken midazolam?” Robotnik asks, voice gruffier. His bones ache. It's as if there are glass shards sloshing inside of him.
“I won't,” Stone says, seated rather calmly on his stool, preparing the anesthesia. It's local; Robotnik refuses to be unconscious when Stone begins. “I need to be anxious.”
Robotnik quirks an incredulous eyebrow, but no reprimand sits at the tip of his tongue. “I'm supposed to be the one making bold decisions here,” Robotnik says. He trusts Stone can translate the subtextual why? underneath his words. It’s not to service Robotnik, of course, but Robotnik would rather not have his wounds infected with tears.
“I work better worrying for you,” Stone insists, uncapping a needle. “That's how I always operate.”
The liquid oozes at the tip of the needle, setting Stone’s large, void-like eyes into focus. Robotnik recognizes that all of his emotions are encapsulated there. It's the only part of his body that can't pretend or lie. It's shaky, but his pupils are dilated. His gaze flits towards Robotnik for a second and he knows he's running calculations in his head. He's thinking, always thinking, but when the anesthesia pops, his gaze stagnates, and Robotnik knows he's made a decision, a seamless path forging in his head.
“If you can't take it, tell me, and we'll switch to general anesthesia.”
“I've taken worse,” Robotnik grumbles. “I performed an appendectomy by myself, once.”
Despite Stone surging to inject the drug into his limbs, Robotnik catches a quick frown appearing on Stone's face. “That's horrible, sir.”
“Exactly,” Robotnik agrees, “so this should be nothing. Just stop fussing you simpleton, worry about your own goddamn self.”
“I can't,” Stone replies monotonously, “May I remind you that you're the priority, doc.”
“No reminder needed, thanks,” Robotnik retorts, muttering a tiny asshole by the end. “Let's just get this thing fucking over with.”
—
They did, eventually, have to use general anesthesia.
There is only a certain amount of screaming and almost-throttling that he could manage. The earlier administered anesthetic did help with suppressing a struggle, but around the time Stone finishes operating around the arms and ribcage, Robotnik just couldn't take it. To hell with ordering Stone around and telling him directly what he's doing right and wrong. That hasn't been happening since Stone realigned his ribs, blood horrifically splattering against his cheek.
They took a five minute pause as Robotnik waits to fall asleep. He's attuned with the fact that his hyperactive body fends off the immediate effects of anesthesia, but that's nothing five passing minutes could fix.
Stone’s elbows are planted by the right side of Robotnik's bed, hands relatively empty. But the constant jittering and grasping motions make it clear that he wants to hold onto something. Of course, he doesn't. He can't for hygienic purposes, but Robotnik does pity him. This has been the most quiet he's ever been, the most passively subservient to Robotnik's commands, and Robotnik has an urge to remove his mask just for the possibility that he can stay lucid with Stone, even if it's just for a little bit longer.
“Doctor,” Stone murmurs, throat slightly parched. He had attended so much for Robotnik's needs that he had forgotten to prepare anything for himself. “I— I'm scared that I— I—”
“You won't kill me,” Robotnik mumbles.
“What if I do,” Stone entertains, “what will— what will I do then?”
Robotnik swallows, closing his eyes. “Then it’s my fault for not being able to withstand it.”
“Sir—”
“You are doing so well,” he attempts consoling. His tone is loopier, words stumbling out unfiltered. “If I die, I die at least with my ribs and arms intact. A real doctor would have killed me in five minutes.”
Stone sharply inhales. “But I won't be enough,” he murmurs. “I'm nothing, doctor. I can't lose you.”
“Shut your fucking trap,” Robotnik tries his best to growl, but it simply sounds like drunken speech. “There is no other person I'd choose to operate on my body besides you.”
It's quiet. There are words that remain unsaid underlying every waiting breath they take. I want to hold you, is one, painfully vulnerable if Robotnik’s mind wasn't drifting away. I know you're doing your best, is another. Please don't hate yourself, please take care of yourself too. Take the midazolam if it keeps your soul intact, because I don’t want to break you in the process of fixing me.
He eventually drifts asleep to those thoughts before Stone says anything else.
At some point, he wakes up accidentally, blurry vision taking in Stone slicing into his numbed legs. It's precise, as if Robotnik was delicately made of paper, and somehow, all he thinks of before losing consciousness once more is, I love you too.
—
He finally, officially wakes up around the tail end of the operation. A dull screen behind Stone indicates that almost eight hours have passed. Stone is by his left thigh, attentively sewing together the last incision he’s made.
Robotnik doesn’t say anything yet despite the light tingle of pain. He just watches, the grey suture circling in and out of his skin. Despite the bloodied state of his body, the motion is admittedly fascinating to look at. It is expected, of course— Stone is unimaginably masterful at any task thrown at him if provided the correct causes. He fiddles with the curved needle as if he were an expert quilter patching the bits and pieces of Robotnik left behind. Something along the lines of kintsugi; a lustrous kind of whole-making.
“You’re goddamn magnificent,” Robotnik murmurs in disbelief. He feels like he's perceiving a god at work.
Stone's shoulders shift, but he doesn't reply immediately. Robotnik would selfishly moan about it if it weren't for the fact that he was actively tying the last knot. Simultaneous to the last snip comes a big, trembling sigh from Stone's lips. The gas in between his shoulder blades pop as he sits upright, head tilting upwards as if basking in the rising sun. His hands still remain limp near his heavy breathing chest, unmoving despite its instability.
“Is it over?” Robotnik dares to ask.
Stone’s eyes lower towards him. “No,” he says weakly, “I just have to apply the stockinettes and the casts, but that’s— that’s fine. Nothing, really, compared to all of this.” Robotnik does not miss the weariness to his voice.
Stone eventually stands, dropping his tools into the tray with a loud clatter. It's only then does Robotnik get a good view of him, the once teal and white attire sullen and crimson. He looks like a butcher, like a man of war. The only thing that remains clean is his hands, gloves perfectly pristine and free of any stain.
“How long will that take?” Robotnik asks as Stone retrieves a roll of what seems to be gauze.
“Probably a minute or two for the stockinettes, an hour for the casts.”
“Do the stocki-wachamacallit first,” Robotnik says. “But that vampiric thing you're wearing's got to go before you apply the casts. You smell like rotting metal.”
Stone blinks, but doesn’t hesitate before moving again to Robotnik's side. “Apologies,” he says monotonously. It causes Robotnik to purse his lips, his chest uncomfortably constricting despite the anesthesia.
Stone operates almost mechanically, wrapping the bandage wherever Robotnik's body is fractured. Which is, well, everything but his head. Stone had to return to the tray thrice just to retrieve more stock, and by the end of it, Robotnik was practically mummified, all scars and dissolvable stitches hidden beneath.
“I look like an absolute idiot,” Robotnik jests crudely. “Was it your intention to make the bandages emphasize my hourglass figure, Stone?” Silence. Robotnik turns. “Stone?”
“Doctor,” Stone replies. His hands are quivering dangerously now, magnitudes heavier from what it was moments ago. Robotnik couldn’t do anything but stare, stunned and useless. “I just— give me a minute.”
Stone immediately turns, his swift movements almost causing him to trip over his own loafers. He catches himself anyway, gripping a nearby steel pillar for support. Despite the fact that the unkempt, hairnet-covered back of Stone’s hair is what faces Robotnik, it's not hard to see that the agent must have been suffering some sort of headache, his upper half swaying as he eventually beelines for their shared bathroom.
The door is squeaked open and slammed shut. Then, a sound even more torturous— retching. It's muffled through metal walls but still audible. Miss it once and another follows, and another, and the clamoring reverberation of it all permanently settles in your amygdala. It certainly does for Robotnik, who can't do anything but stare endlessly into his stupid face icon on the bathroom floor. He's just frozen, stuck, something strong and deeply ingrained holding him down from yelling out.
It doesn't matter, anyway. Stone frees himself after fifteen minutes.
His scrubs and gloves are gone, bundled up next to the tiny trash can in the corner of the bathroom. Instead, he dons a black cotton tee and some sweats. It isn't something Robotnik typically sees him in, but he supposes the line between workplace, home, and hospital blurs in the Crab.
“The casting shouldn't hurt as much, just sit still,” Stone declares as he saunters back, body turning towards the unclean metal tray.
“What do you think you're doing?” Robotnik snips back, pushing his throat to sound angrier. “You are sitting down on this damn stool and you are taking a fucking break.”
Stone’s head rapidly whips towards Robotnik, the stoic face he's plastered since he's awakened crumbling immediately. “Doctor, no—”
“Sit down,” Robotnik demands, teeth gritted. “Rest.”
Stone clamps his lips shut. Slowly, sheepishly, he makes his way to Robotnik's side, sitting down as if he were a kindergartener sentenced to repent at the corner. “Doctor, I'm almost do—”
“Shh!” Robotnik exclaims, lips exaggerated.
“You nee—”
“Quiet!” Robotnik interjects again, eyebrows furrowing.
“The cast—”
“—is not too important—”
“It's very important!” A hard slam against Robotnik's side. Robotnik flinches as the palms almost reach him.
They share a breath.
Robotnik's is heavy, anticipating, but Stone's holds gravity, heftier than usual, like there's something stuck in his throat. His face is tense, wrinkled at every corner.
Robotnik has never seen Stone crumble this much.
There is the question of ego, of self-preservation, that seizes all action from his body. Of course there's the anesthesia, but he's lucid. Decades of isolation allowed him to not think deliberately, because every earthling he's met is below him anyway. But Stone isn't that. He isn't omnipotent but he isn't lowly. He's an orphan, a fugitive. A traitor to the military. There are loud, undeniable leitmotifs that ring in Robotnik's ears, as if their relation to each other is a promised, narrative wonder.
So, his intuitively-driven ego can only go so far. It is an inevitability anyway, because he realizes then that if he wants to rule the world, senseless destruction has limited capabilities. Consolidated power comes with intent, with strategy— but, of course, he hasn't ruled the world. Failed miserably at that actually. Yet, Stone remains steadfast at his aide, and this feeling that rumbles inside, he thinks, is not so undesirable either.
There is a duty here that Robotnik has to fulfill.
“Come,” Robotnik beckons.
Stone's thick eyebrows furrow. “What?”
Robotnik rolls his eyes. “What, did you perform a lobotomy on yourself too?” Stone squints. “I mean— I mean, move close. Put your forehead on mine, you moron.”
“Doctor, you’re—”
“My head is undamaged, Stone. Are you questioning my intelligence?”
The pained expression on Stone's face lifts a little, but his lips form a straight line. Robotnik can tell there's a questioning taunt at the tip of Stone's tongue, but instead of spitting it out, he follows. He scoots closer, stool legs dragging against the metal floor. He doesn't put his forehead against Robotnik's, not directly and especially not with the slanted position Robotnik's body is in, but he squishes his face against the pillow, right next to Robotnik's temple.
“Give yourself a break, sycophant,” he murmurs, feeling the tips of Stone's dishevelled hair tickle his cheek.
Somehow, that simple statement triggers Stone's tears. It pours out of his eyes almost automatically, a garbled sob erupting from his mouth. It's not unexpected— Stone has been crying during the lead up, too— but it’s thunderous, a quick and simple motion that makes Robotnik's body shudder. Stone's fingers even grip the sheets below him, right where Robotnik's hand lays limp, and Robotnik stares at the canyon between both as if it were an insult from God.
“I don't even know if— if you'll survive,” Stone blabbers, cheeks tear-ridden, “I don’t know how to forgive myself if you don't.”
“Can we stop manifesting my death?” Robotnik rebuts exasperatedly.
“I'm sorry,” Stone whispers. His lips produce more sobs, ribcage and shoulders so rackety that Robotnik's makeshift bed squeaks. It's as if a bullet is travelling through Stone’s body, his form breaking down, and God, this really is a pitiful sight. Robotnik can’t liken it to anything but a cosmic horror, because how do you explain his inability to look at Stone directly?
“You're overreacting,” Robotnik replies, but the words come out plainly, noncommittally.
“I'm sorry,” Stone repeats, hand tightening. “Oh god.”
“Stone, come on. I'm here, I'm alive.” Robotnik turns his neck slightly. Stone immediately notices, face lifting to stare at Robotnik with his huge eyes and heavy-breathing lips. “Please— please stop crying.” The pillow dips as his chin tilts upwards, just a little, just enough to impart an invitation. “Come here.”
Stone, ever so sharp-minded, closes his eyes and leans gently. Forehead to forehead, man to man, rabbit to rabbit, keeping each other warm on a winter morning. Stone's arm finally lifts, gently cupping Robotnik's cheeks as he continues to cry. Who is drowning, and who is the lifeline? Robotnik doesn't know.
He just stays there, quiet, breathing Stone in.
—
The casts stay on for six to eight weeks, depending on Robotnik’s trajectory of growth. Stone devotes himself to Robotnik, like a weeping mother attending church.
There’s a four-letter word haunting his conscience every time he perceives Stone. Robotnik routinely sleeps and wakes, but when his eyes breach open, Stone always happens to be in his direct periphery. Waiting, attentive. His lips always tilt upwards upon the first millisecond of Robotnik’s awakening. It does something to his brain, something so childishly magical, and he feels if he puts a name to it, like a birthday wish, it’d disappear.
But he recognizes it, that four-letter word. In English, its overuse has caused it to stale. In other languages, its usage is more exclusive, like a holy name. Google states it’s a noun and a verb, “an intense feeling of deep affection”. In tennis, it’s comedically opposite: a complete absence.
Although, Stone is above language too, Robotnik thinks. He’s something to experience whole, not unlike the lattes he makes specifically curated for him.
But, and this is important— Robotnik thinks of something he heard then, when he was younger. Something about the presence of that four-letter word not being tantamount to an absence of struggle. It was just some conjecture then, something one of his religious professors said back when he was studying. But for all its eye-rolling, philosophical richness, Robotnik thinks he’s finally recognizing its merit.
Within a five-meter radius of Robotnik, Stone is present. More present if there is an active conversation. But free the agent, and Robotnik thinks there’s something wrong. Something odd.
Back when they had tight schedules, Stone often worked double-time, finishing his duties pronto. Not much of that urgency has changed, but the perfectionistic portion of Robotnik’s head notices the additional one to two minute delay on meager tasks, especially for ones Robotnik cannot witness clearly.
Robotnik has accepted that change is welcome in this new era of retired villainy. Two weeks alone and he’s put into an existential fit, which is not something he would boast about at almost sixty. But he is still painfully stubborn, painfully self-appraising, always amenable to the question of what’s next? as it keeps the algorithm of his person in check.
But Stone is part of this too, even if he wouldn’t dare express such verbally. The bug that he is, he’s embedded himself so deeply into Robotnik’s code that he does not think divorce is possible. So a part of that what’s next?, then, is the question of who this agent is, when that exact title fits like a loose screw.
For as much as a genius Robotnik is, there is no mental directory he can flip through that would tell him the answer. Similarly, for as much as a theatrical liar Robotnik is, there's a part of him that loathes the very idea of pretending to know him, to memorize him. No part of him dares to even try, to claim his perception of Stone is complete. There is an undeniable intimacy, of course, almost akin to a prayer, but, but—
There are times the coffee maker beeps for too long. There are times Robotnik looks and sees that Stone is staring blankly at the thing. Robotnik has once complained about a minute of freshly brewed lattes gone to waste, but the words slip past Stone’s ears as if it were a simple breeze, and Robotnik knew, Robotnik knew, that Stone is as much of a changed man as he is.
—
It happens once, right in front of him.
Robotnik's body has almost repaired itself. The once excruciating pain has retreated into dull throbbing, and according to Stone's expert opinion, it should be okay by next week. Robotnik doubts it, but he saves the chastising for after seven days, because by God does he want to move so badly.
In the meantime, Stone feeds him chicken noodle soup. The liquid food Stone has been feeding Robotnik are just as heavenly as his coffee, with the added bonus of recipes changing every day. They're about halfway through this bowl when the energy shifts, Stone gazing absently at his reflection on the spoon.
“Stone.”
No response, just a quiet, gradual tilt of the head.
“Stone.”
Stone blinks harshly, then blinks a couple times more. Nothing sputters out of his mouth, but his head moves erratically, like he's a robot being booted back to life.
Another three blinks. “Doctor?”
“Welcome back to earth— how was your trip out of the Milky Way?”
Stone's eyebrows furrow, eyes averting from Robotnik's. His mouth opens and closes, jaw clenching nervously.
Then, he shuts his eyes and shakes his head as if a bug landed on his quiff. A weighted sigh then succeeds, Stone's spoon-filled hand lowering into his decorated bowl. “I apologize, sir,” he says, “I don't know what came over me.”
“Don't tell me a spoon can out-fascinate me,” Robotnik jests. It mismatches the sudden, prickly feeling at his chest, so he ensures punctuating his joke with a focused stare.
“No, no sir. It's just—” Stone still avoids his eyes, exchanging looks with a bowl. “I thought it was stained.”
A pang. Robotnik does not speak.
“It’s— it's not there, now. Or maybe it's rust, maybe soap? I— I apologize, sir. I must’ve not washed it properly.”
No, no no no. Realization washes over him like a flash flood, eyes slowly widening when he sees it. The oddness, Stone's point of change.
He's still the same person by description. Stone is just as subservient as usual, Robotnik’s very own Egyptian plover, but the kind of basking that he performs is even more grandiose than it was before. And that's— that's it, that's the brunt of it. That unconditional four-letter word, invasive like vines. A kind of brain-eating amoeba that makes us jump in front of a familiar before a moving car hits.
Something so, so sweet it rots, something akin to planting rose seeds in your esophagus.
“Stone,” Robotnik speaks, voice as stern as he can make it. “Have you— have you been feeling okay since the operation?”
Stone blinks, a sense of disbelief in his huge eyes. He prolongs his silence for five more seconds than his usual response time. “Oh, it's— you're not joking.”
“Yes, you cretin, insert tone indicator here or whatever the fuck them youngins call it.”
A small laugh erupts from Stone's throat, but it dies rather quickly. That honestly could be an answer on its own.
“Is it normal to still think that, I don't know, that I feel you'd still die any day, doctor?” Stone asks, looking up from his bowl but past Robotnik, right towards the unused screens by the sides.
“Your objectivity is wearing off, Stone.”
He chuckles. “Maybe it is,” Stone replies. He sounds normal, almost as if nothing is wrong. But that plausible deniability dissipates when Stone adds, “Do you think I have…?”
The rest mostly goes unsaid, but it punches the breath out of Robotnik's battered lungs. There is the kind of pain that comes from falling from a twenty-story mecha and the illegal operation that comes after, and there's whatever this is— this thing of expense, that Robotnik is wrapped up, cozied in a warmly lit room, and Stone—
“Is it foolishness?”
“What?”
“It would be nicer to know that it is foolishness,” Robotnik rambles, but he doesn't know necessarily for who. There's a stampede in his head that wants out. “That— that your consent, that your tears and your ultimate succumbence to actually doing it was just some bout of stupidity—”
“Doctor, what are you—”
“Because if it is— if what you did, if what you did to me is out of pure, childlike love,” Robotnik breathes harshly, “I don't— I don't know how to accept that. I— I can't, actually! I can't—” In hyperdrive, Robotnik rattles his slung arms, which immediately causes Stone to reach out and firmly hold him down, “I am an evil, evil man, Stone. A goddamn fairytale villain, as Walters would insultingly say, but I am not— I am not a monster—”
“Sir, what are you saying?”
“Un-love me!” Robotnik shouts, “have a do-over, fuck, maybe even leave! Thickheadedness aside, you are a pure, pure man, and you shouldn't— you shouldn't break over me. You shouldn't be swallowing asbestos for my amusement, shouldn't bathe in acid if I said it preserved my ego, because fuck me, alright? I'm nothing, I am of zero importance, zilch, and you shouldn't have fucking sliced me open if you couldn't even take it!”
Robotnik's breathing is uneven. He feels disgusted at himself. He's entertained the idea of never wanting to be born before, but now he means it, because there is possibly a universe where Stone doesn't undergo this. Where Stone has a family with kids, his brain still supple and symmetrical, and Robotnik couldn’t even swallow the idea of stealing that from him. From stealing his sanity, his certainty for safety.
His normalcy.
“I took it,” Stone replies softly. His eyes return to Robotnik's. “I'd do it again and again if I have to.”
“NO!” Robotnik yells. He imagines the Crab trembling. “Stone, Stone you can't— you can't—”
“I think I still would've been traumatized if I let someone else operate you,” Stone interjects. Putting the bowl aside, he leans into Robotnik's bed, nuzzling his head next to that forsaken spot by Robotnik's temple.
“But you're—” Robotnik swallows. He feels something slip from his eyelids. “Why— why would you do that for me?”
“I feel like you know,” Stone says, with the audacity to smile a little. “I've never felt this way so strongly in my life. It's— it's intoxicating, really. It makes me feel… safe. You're a force to be reckoned with, and I like that. I want to preserve you in all your glory. I feel like I've been waiting to love something all my life, raring to burst, and now I have you and our self-contained, little thing. I feel very protective of it.”
“But you're breaking yourself,” Robotnik says, voice cracking.
“You too, sir,” Stone replies with a widened grin, like what Robotnik said is the most ridiculous thing he has heard. There are tears prickling Stone's eyes, nose scrunching. “You do too.”
Robotnik doesn't even know what to say. Rendered speechless puts it better, a gold-laced guilt festering in his stomach. Cautious awe. Stone is just so, so beautiful, like a classic painter's final masterpiece. But reverence alone is not something he wants to end with, nor unconditionality. At the baseline, he needs a reason, a condition. He needs to be known and to know thoroughly, to be able to consider the repercussions of things.
All this to say: he cannot allow Stone to hurt further. That is a must. There is a delicacy to the art of caretaking. The equitable exchange, the intimate familiarity with the other person.
Robotnik thinks today’s a good day for both of them to start studying it better.
—
They are sitting in their kitchen, having breakfast after a night-long subathon. Robotnik tinkers with one of his badniks, rewiring its insides to, ideally, make a portable microwave, but the thing is filled with wiry innards, so it's taking an infuriatingly long while.
“God, I should've started from scratch,” he moans, retrieving his dust-coated hands away from the bundles of wires. “These perfect machinations, all but wasted unless I spend an unhealthy, continuous eight hours to try piecing it back together. What do you think, Stone, should I do it? Should I stream it?”
His eyes dart upwards, above the mess and towards the man standing by their coffee machine. Robotnik only realizes, then, that the coffee has been fully brewed for a while, and Stone is just standing there, staring.
With a quiet sigh, Robotnik immediately claps dust off his hands and approaches Stone. He still doesn't move when Robotnik nears, no sign of recognition when Robotnik walks in front and covers the coffee machine.
He learns that sometimes, Stone dissociates. Stone describes it as feeling adrift, like he's a balloon in the wind, only coming back down to earth when the rubber pops. Seeing him like this, Robotnik still believes the surgery shouldn't have happened. A simple beep, a meager metal object, and Stone is brought back to that operation table, having an eight-hour tango with death.
But; he isn't a different person. That is something Stone himself insists. Another, Stone doesn't see it as Robotnik’s fault. He disagrees, of course he does, but he is easily shut up when Stone mentions everyone else out there. His abandoned families, GUN. His classmates and his suppliers. They're all at fault here, contributors of the weathered state they’re both in. Live as livestock for too long and hopping the fence is practically a death sentence.
Stone says he's just responding to the cards he's given— but that makes Robotnik realize, then, that he needs to up the ante. He wants to be of service too, and he wants Stone to come down, because he doesn't need a self-sacrificing savior, a mini Jesus Christ. Robotnik's not a charity case. He doesn't want to be some kind of ancient manuscript Stone dutifully guards and protects twenty-four seven.
He needs Stone alive, present. Wholly him and maskless as long as Robotnik lived. The boss-employee title has long faded away. It's not about just Robotnik anymore. They are two broken people against the world, and he doesn't know what to do himself if he wakes up with an empty spot in his bed.
Robotnik reaches out, his warm hands gently grasping both of Stone’s palms. They’re coarse and calloused, clearly have fought many battles. He thumbs the lines at the center, massaging them, hoping to breathe life into Stone's system.
Eventually, Stone's absent stare finally shifts, pupils gradually dilating. The corners of his mouth twitch as he sees Robotnik, then their conjoined hands.
“I knew a simple mind like you couldn't handle the intricacies of Hardcore Minecraft,” Robotnik jests, and Stone laughs. It's a beautiful sound. “What's going on in that small head of yours?”
“I'm just… thinking. It's not— it's not too important, just thinking,” Stone explains. “I think— I think I'd like to nap, just a little longer.”
“Well, why didn't you just say so?” Robotnik asks accusatorily, but he knows Stone sees past it.
“Someone needed to make breakfast.”
“Well, sycophant, I think we're both well-aware I have hands too,” he explains, pressing deeper against pulse points in Stone's palms. “Machine-making, breadmaking. The difference is semantics.”
“The difference is, you don’t know how to fry an egg.”
“Well, that's where the contradiction lies, my darling imbecile, because I know how to learn,” he says. Stone cocks a doubtful eyebrow, which causes Robotnik to sigh. “For brevity's sake, Stone: let me take you to bed. Let me take care of you.”
Stone's face eases up, smiling, clearly endeared.
Coffee left behind, badnik still sprawled on the table, Robotnik leads Stone away. Nothing matters except him, anyway. Robotnik doesn't believe in complete reciprocity, thinks it's virtually impossible, but he does try his best committing acts he thinks is tantamount to the world Stone has sacrificed for him. It's a tall order, something he doesn't think is achievable for the last decades he has left of his life, but he's promised Stone to start somewhere.
For this, it's care, attention. Stone sneaks into bed tiredly and Robotnik follows, even if he himself is brimming with energy. Stone scoots close, arm wrapping around Robotnik's torso, and he lets him, gives himself wholly like a Eucharist, and doesn't dare lift his eyes from him until he's fallen fast asleep.