Work Text:
It was 5:48am.
Instigation was up before the sun, as he always was. He needs to be early; the faster he opens up the courthouse, the faster he can get any work that had been left for him done (which was usually a lot). He doesn’t take kindly to any interruptions in his routine. Interruptions usually meant trouble, and this town had seen enough of that, especially as of late.
He’s about halfway through smoothing out his bedsheets when his hands brush over two small, metal objects.
Initially, Instigation doesn’t know what it is he’s looking at when he glances down. They’re both shaped like rings, but they’re too small to go over anyone’s finger. They’re a dazzling red, and shone like they were brand new.
Instigation concludes that these are earrings of some kind.
Earrings that are not his.
Instigation does not panic. He just has to figure out who these belong to and return them to their rightful owner. Simple as that.
He runs down a small list of suspects in his head. Infatuation was certainly fashionable, but she doesn’t wear earrings like these. Ignorance scarcely leaves his house, so there’s no way they could have ended up here. He’s certain Temptation doesn’t even wear jewelry like this - nor do Fodder or Arrogance or… whoever she was. And Fixation.
Fixation.
Instigation looks at the earrings in his palm.
Calmly, he pockets them, finishes making his bed, leaves his house, opens the courthouse, heads to his office, and sits down at his desk.
Then, and only then, does he start to panic a little.
It wasn’t like Instigation was scared of him, absolutely not. He just knows that, at some point, Fixation was going to notice that something of his was missing. And he was going to want it back. And he knew exactly who to get it from. And Instigation does not want to see Fixation again. For many reasons.
The worst part was that he didn’t need to be in this situation right now. If he had just told Fixation to go find another damn place to stay the night at, he would be fine, and he could go back to pretending that he didn’t exist.
But Instigation didn’t do any of that. Now he was suffering the consequences.
All he can do is wait. Wait until Fixation comes knocking and asks for his stuff back. And later won’t come any faster if he sits and languishes about it for the next who-knows-however-many hours.
So, Instigation starts working.
It was 10:23am.
Instigation does not want these earrings on his person anymore.
For the past few hours, he’s been attempting to busy himself with paperwork to take his mind off his current predicament. Key word: attempting.
It’s not that he isn’t trying, because he is. It’s just that every now and then he’ll see a word in some random document that reminds him of something else, and before he knows it he’s reminded himself that the earrings were still in his pocket.
In short, he hasn’t gotten much done.
He decides that something needs to be done, so he pulls out the earrings and lets them fall against the desk. Still red and still shining.
He needs to put these somewhere. Somewhere away from him.
He scans his desk for a place to put them, and his eyes fall on a small ashtray near its upper left corner. It was a gift from Arrogance to him when he first came to town. He didn’t like it, but he still took it despite knowing that he would never, ever use it.
His hand hovers above the tray, and two loud clinks indicate that both earrings have fallen in. There. He’ll worry about them again when Fixation comes to pick them up. Until then, out of sight, out of mind.
It was 2:39pm.
A hedgehog has caught Instigation’s attention.
He does not know what they look like, as they aren’t facing the direction of the courthouse window. They stand on the curb, between a saloon and some random corner store. Their body language indicates that they might be waiting for something, but Instigation can’t make heads or tails of what that may be.
Instigation does not know why he’s wasting his breath watching this one Mobian. It wasn’t like they were any different from all of the other hedgehogs in this town (there were a surprising amount of them), and they didn’t appear to be up to anything shady.
They just remind him of someone.
Their quills look like how his did the night Fixation showed up at Instigation’s door, sort of frazzled and unkempt. Instigation wonders if their eyes bear the same deep circles that his did, or if their voice carries that same vulnerable cadence.
Heavens to Betsy, he needs to stop thinking like this.
This has to be a long con. It has to. It sounds exactly like something he would do. Show up at the judge’s door looking desperate, make up something about lease problems so you can stay the night, and leave something behind in his bed so you can mock him when he inevitably has to give it back. That would explain why Instigation’s been hanging onto these all day and Fixation still hasn’t come to get them.
Instigation can practically hear his response. Aww, you kept these just for me? I’m flattered. I guess you do still think about me after all this time. Maybe I should let you keep ‘em, just so you have something to remember me by.
Instigation needs these earrings out of his life. So he can stop thinking about them. So they can stop haunting him with their presence. None of this would have happened if he hadn’t let that bastard into his house, let him sleep in his bed. And for what? Because he wanted to do something nice? For him?
All of this is getting to Instigation’s head. He wheels himself around in his chair so that he’s now facing his desk.
He needs to get back to work.
It was 8:10pm.
The courthouse is closed for the day, and Instigation still has those damn earrings.
He decides to take an alternate route home. The second he gets back to his house and locks the door, he makes his way straight to his bed. He’s never done this before. He doesn’t see what good staring at the ceiling can do him.
He thinks. He thinks a lot. He decides that he can’t keep letting these things bother him. Fixation clearly doesn’t seem to want them anyway. He starts looking for some place to put them, somewhere he can forget about them.
Instigation hears a knock on the door and he freezes in place.
He clutches the earrings as though he’s suddenly decided he wants to keep them. He’s looking at the door, but he dares not move to answer. All his fears about who’s there are confirmed when he hears that voice calling to him from outside.
Instigation takes a breath. Then another. If he does this, the earrings will be gone, and he can go about his life as normal again. Like nothing ever happened. Like that night never happened.
He makes his choice. He strides towards the door.
Instigation was not going to let this crook get the best of him.