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This intro will self-destruct in five…four…

dividers from @/animatedglittergraphics-n-more

Before today, Dingo had never heard of such a thing as an echidna. Frankly he still wasn’t sure exactly what echidnas were. But the lone ambassador of the species had made a significant impression. 

An impression here, an impression there, one really big impression right in his stomach that had nearly made Dingo cough up his spleen.  

Knuckles the Echidna thoroughly trounced him. This indignity left him angry, confused, and a little scared. 

Allegedly.

Just a little. 

“You’re sure you don’t want the medbot to treat you?” Sleet asked while piloting the Whiptail. 

Seated beside him, Dingo shook his head, then immediately regretted doing so. He winced and pawed at his skull. This must’ve been what so many Freedom Fighters felt like after going head-to-head with him. He didn’t like it. “I can wait ‘til we get back home.” The fortress wasn’t much of a home in the traditional sense, but describing it as such made the whole contractually bound to a tyrannical egg-shaped man situation less dreary. Plus, home rolled off the tongue easier than fortress. 

Sleet’s face appeared troubled. He’d been giving Dingo these weird glances from the very moment they embarked, bright yellow eyes darting from rain-misted windshield to mutant and back again. Dingo didn’t understand. A concussion and some flesh wounds, that’s all this was. True, Dingo came out of the fight looking a bit rougher than usual. The gashes he received from Knuckles’ spiked gloves were red and deep, and the kid’s pet dinosaur packed a nasty bite. 

But he was still standing, wasn’t he? He bandaged up the worst of the damage himself using Angel Island’s natural resources; the stuff there wasn’t much different from what was found in the Tralian bush. Sleet had nothing to worry about. Was there some other reason he kept glancing over? Was he judging him, judging his worth? 

“What?” Dingo challenged when Sleet’s eyes came his way again. 

“I’m making sure you’re not bleeding all over the Whiptail,” Sleet said matter-of-fact, eyes flitting back to the dreary skies ahead. “I just had the interior cleaned.”

“ ‘Course not! I never bleed!” Dingo did bleed. There was blood beading from his countless superficial scrapes as they spoke. He tasted blood at the back of his throat. But that didn’t matter. He had a point to make. “Good luck finding someone who doesn’t bleed and by good luck I really mean bad luck! Because you won’t!”

“Uh-huhhh . . . good to know? What are you getting at? You’re making even less sense than usual.” 

“Oh,” Dingo said, settling back down and feeling his body lighten with relief. He was being muffinbrained, worrying over the imaginary. “Sorry about that. Mondays, amirite? Guess I’m still a bit fired up from—” Dingo went to flex. “Ow!”  A staggering jolt of full body pain put a quick stop to his gun show. 

Furious his own body was betraying him, he raged. “Grrah! Shouldn’t the pain ‘ave stopped by now?! Why are my cuts still open?!” His jaws itched terribly with the urge to bite down and tear into something. 

“That, I am unsure,” Sleet admitted, “Exhaustion, stress, dehydration? Perhaps the island’s atmosphere affected you? In spite of my uncanny intellect, there are things about you that remain a mystery to me.”

The tightness in Dingo’s jaws eased. Him, mysterious? He could have blushed. Sleet was the one who rode motorcycles. Traditionally, that alone made him more of the rebellious mysterious type. 

“But if my wounds stay like this . . . ” Dingo mused aloud. Cold hard realization sank in his chest. Ears drooping, he frowned and muttered.  “Guess this means no bubble bath.” 

Dingo took offense to the commonly held belief among Freedom Fighters that he was unkempt. Sleet might’ve not been overly fussed about good coat health, but Dingo’s fur gleamed. All the better to accentuate his muscles, and after a hard day’s work of bashing skulls, there was nothing more refreshing than taking a warm soak.  

“I’ll clean you,” Sleet said readily. Dingo turned to him, confused. Embarrassment flashed across Sleet’s face before he quickly amended. “Your wounds, I mean. I trust that you know how to use a shower without assistance.”

“Ah. That makes more sense.”

Sleet continued. “Wound care requires a delicate, artful hand. Luckily for you, my hands are free until further notice.”

Before, when their days weren’t so hectic and demanding, he might have politely objected with an “Oh, y’don’t have to do that.” or a “No worries, I got it.” His busted lips started to form one such declination until he realized the novelty of Sleet’s proposal. He closed his mouth, considering. Some pampering would be nice. He more than deserved it after the beatdown he’d endured. 

“Thanks,” Dingo smiled at Sleet, who redoubled his efforts to look cool and aloof. That simply wouldn’t do. “Howsabout the whole spa treatment while you’re at it? Y’know, a massage? Mud mask? Ooo! Those little fishes that nibble at your feet?!”

Sleet’s brows creased. “Mhm, I don’t know if I’ll have the time for all that. Robotnik—”

Dingo laughed, though not as long nor full-throated as usual. His abdomen was too sore for it. “I’m kidding ya, Sleet! I mean, where would you even find the fish?” 

“Oh,” said Sleet, looking slightly abashed. He shrugged and put his poker face back on. “Just as well. Too much attention could go to your head, and you’re topheavy enough as is.”

With the majority of the Empire’s forces being robotic, the medbay was almost exclusively used by the two bounty hunters, and rarely at that. More often Sleet relied on the medbot unit attached to his belt or the Whiptail’s first aid kit. 

Dingo found the space a touch too sterile. It reminded him of the glorified tuna cans Robotnik called outposts. But unlike those, the motivational cat poster and other flourishes Dingo put up sometime ago did little to shift the atmosphere. No one ever enjoyed going to the doctor’s office. The same principle applied to the medbay. 

Fortunately, he had an attentive nurse. A bit crummy in the way of bedside manner and conversation, but attentive nevertheless. Sleet handled him like he handled delicate machinery or his favorite expensive silks, if not better. Laser-focused, he wasn’t even humming as he usually did when he worked. Dingo wished he had. The buzz of the lights’ overhead was really starting to annoy him.

Since Dingo’s healing factor was amiss, it was up to Sleet to go in and manually remove what couldn’t be flushed out. Definitely a job for delicate, artful hands. 

“Steady,” Sleet warned. Dingo tensed and sucked in a pained breath as he felt the tweezer sink further, metal points nicking his flesh and latching onto something hidden deep within. It took some wiggling for whatever he’d captured to finally dislodge from its burrow. Sleet, face tight with concentration, pulled the object free. 

Dingo grunted upon its exit. Immediately, blood oozed down his arm. He was glad for the warmth. In the tweezers’ metal jaws was yet another shard, thicker and more jagged than those fished out before. 

“Tricky thing,” Sleet muttered, giving the impressively sized splinter an once over.  He then placed it into a pan, reuniting it with the rest of the excavated debris. “That should be all of it. The pieces almost fit together. Looks unremarkable, but I’ll give it to Lionel or one of the other intellectual dweebs, just to be sure it’s not tipped with some sort of poison.” 

“‘Dweebs’?” That was one of Dingo’s words, one he would have never expected to come out of Sleet’s mouth. “Heh, that’s new. Do it again!” 

“It’s a good word,” Sleet confessed. 

“I’m really rubbin’ off on ya, huh?” 

“Let’s hope it’s not terminal.”

Dingo snorted a laugh. He wasn’t entirely sure what terminal meant, but he knew the comment was all in good fun. Aside from the sarcasm, figures of speech, and the occasional overly long smarty-smart word, Sleet wasn’t that hard to decode. “Soon enough we’ll be finishin’ each other’s, er . . . ”

“Sentences.”

“Exactly!” 

Sleet refocused, applying gauze and pressure to Dingo’s shoulder and dabbing up spilled blood. Quiet reigned again. 

Thinking about what Sleet said, Dingo considered the pan’s contents with newfound interest. Poison? He wanted that to be true. The echidna must’ve cheated, and that’s why he was out of sorts. That’s why he lost. Inwardly, Dingo sighed. 

Then he noticed Sleet dousing a rag with pungent antiseptic gel and his sense of relief abandoned him. 

“Maybe this one can go without antisept,” he tried bargaining. “Wouldn’t want to use the whole bottle on lil’ ol’ me.” 

“There’s plenty more in the cabinet.” Well, there went his one and only idea of how to get out of this. 

Sleet started counting down, as he had before treating the previous lacerations. He’d been afraid Dingo might startle and flail. Reasonable enough of a fear. When you’re several hundred pounds of brute strength, every limb became a weapon. 

Dingo’s muscles bunched tight and his teeth gritted as he braced for impact. Cloth touched skin, and a searing pain lanced the mutant from shoulder to fingertip. He only just fought back a roar, muzzle wrinkling in a silent snarl. Why did it have to be so burny? All these technological advancements, yet no one’s figured out how to make an antiseptic that doesn’t burn. 

Sleet’s praise made the ordeal slightly more bearable. “Well done, Dingo.” 

The gash fizzed and bubbled. When the frothy activity died out, so did the burning, replaced by a numbing chill as the anti-sept congealed and hardened to become a gummy blue-toned paste. His arm went heavy. Barring its medicinal odor, Dingo always thought antisept looked a little appetizing in this stage, like a sliver of gelatin or jam. 

He’d tasted it once. Once was more than enough. 

“It’s curious,” remarked Sleet as he began dressing Dingo’s shoulder, “how you can withstand tank missiles and pulse cannons and not make so much as a peep, yet the everyday antiseptic gets you squirming.”

Initially Dingo had only been half-listening. That last bit about peeps gave him a start. “W-what d’ya mean?” He couldn’t quite dampen the anxiety in his voice. “What d’ya mean by that?” Maybe his concerns hadn’t been muffinbrained after all. 

“Hm? Nothing. I was just teasing. Kiddin’ ya, as you say.” Sleet looked at him expectantly, like he was waiting for a laugh. 

Dingo could fake laugh with the best of them. The ability was something he learned very early in his profession. He had to, or else Sleet would get huffy. And Sleet, bless him, was no Comedy Chimp. 

The wolf’s observation dredged up that unpleasant feeling Dingo experienced earlier in the Whiptail, making him miss his cue. Instead of a laugh, he settled for an uneven smile, a smile he knew looked as strained as it felt to make. The jig was up. 

“Alright, what’s gotten into you?” Sleet said, hands going to his hips. “You were prickly on the way back from Angel Island, and now you’ve got t-that . . . ” He gestured at him. “That face.”

“What face? I don’t have a face,” Dingo lied. “This is my normal face.” In mere seconds the medbay became an interrogation room. Feeling naked, Dingo hunched in on himself. Sleet was looking at him with such a probing intensity, it was like he’d suddenly acquired X-Ray vision. 

“Oh, come on, Dingo. I know you. That is not your normal face.” His tone softened to a coax. “Tell me what’s wrong so I can help.” So he did have a bedside manner. And a very persuasive one at that. 

“You don’t, uh . . . ” Dingo stopped to swallow and give his chops a nervous lick. Emotion clogged his throat. For once, without any help from the transmogrifying remote, he felt so small. “You don’t think I’m losing my edge, do you, Sleet?”

He usually didn’t have an issue being vulnerable. Shame was a feeling he seldom experienced. But it’d been so long since someone had intimidated him this badly. Sonic, Manic, they weren’t so much scary as they were annoying. Pests to swat away. Sonia, she gave him a fun challenge. Spats with her worked up a nice muscle burn. 

By contrast, Knuckles was an immovable, deceptively unsquishable object. The only thing possibly more intimidating was the thought of asking Sleet out on a date. 

“You suplexed a dinosaur today. I’d hardly call that losing your edge.” 

“Well, yeah, but—” Mumbling, he went to rub and futz at his arm. Sleet reminded him of the bandages, and he stopped his fidgeting—“it was kinda small, an’ I coulda suplexed it harder.” 

“You suplexed a dinosaur,” Sleet repeated. “Believe me, Dingo, if I was concerned about your combat abilities, you would know.”

Dingo guessed he couldn’t argue with that. Sleet never turned down an opportunity to find faults and carp. It didn’t change the fact that Dingo lost. Whether the spike was poisoned or not didn’t matter. Years ago he wouldn’t have let the little hermit get close enough to land a single hit.

 He looked away and beseeched the cat poster for protection from Sleet’s soul-boring gaze. A forceful but not unfriendly chin grab pulled him back. Still, he refused to make eye contact. 

“Help me understand. You’ve lost before. Sophie—”

“Sonia.”

“—Sonia’s bested you time and time again. You didn’t lose spirit then.”

“Sonia don’t fly.”

“What?”

“He flies.”

Sleet’s brows scrunched in confusion. He paused, visibly considering the physics of such a feat before giving his head a firm shake. “Nevermind that. Everyone has a gimmick now. Look at me, Dingo.” 

Dingo reluctantly obliged. Once their eyes locked, he couldn’t have tore away even if he tried. There was something new there in Sleet’s gaze, something meaningful and almost tender. 

“Someone told me once there was no shame in losing, and that you’ve only really lost if you don’t learn from your failures. There will be more days. More failures. Defeat is hard. Painful, mostly. Still, there’s value there. The echidna may have gotten the better of you today, but now we know what to expect. What weaknesses to exploit.”

“I don’t know, Sleet. I-I don’t think that kid’s got any weaknesses. He fought like a de—” Sleet’s hand alighted upon the space behind Dingo’s floppy ear and began slowly scratching. Maybe it was his imagination, but to Dingo it seemed every ache, pain, and worry weakened. The curative properties of ear scritches far exceeded that of anything the medbay could provide.  Honing in on the gentle pressure of each slender fingertip caressing his skull, he slipped into a near meditative state. 

“Everyone has a weakness,” Sleet assured. “Perhaps Knuckles’ weakness is not physical, but emotional. Perhaps, before you break his bones, I must break his spirit. All in good time.” 

For Sleet, this was an unusual amount of physical contact, especially considering he wasn’t getting anything in return. Nothing tangible anyway. Even during their elevator interaction two months back, incredibly physical as it was, Sleet had done so to better himself. Dingo was just being helpful. 

Maybe Robotnik had rewarded Sleet and that’d boosted his mood. Maybe he just liked the way Dingo’s ears felt. They were silky smooth after all. About time someone noticed and appreciated his work. He stopped wondering, deciding to enjoy the moment. 

“First you need rest, and I need readings on that spike.” 

Ensorcelled by ear scritches, it didn’t dawn on Dingo that Sleet had moved away until he heard the sink turn on. He opened his eyes to see him getting everything in order, collecting equipment to clean and tossing soiled gauze. Dingo looked down at himself and discovered he was all patched up. “Wow. You work fast. So, hey, Sleet, who’s this ‘someone’ bloke?” His back turned, Sleet stopped mid-scrub. “Kiddin’! I’m kiddin’! I knew you were talkin’ about me. I’m not that bad.” 

Sleet looked ceilingward and sighed. He sounded relieved, as if he’d just been told good news about a mysterious rash. “You make it so hard to tell.”

Dingo grinned toothily, then composed himself. “Thanks, Sleet. For everything.”

Sleet’s tail twitched, and his bearing went stiff. “Don’t go and make a big deal out of it,” he mumbled. Dingo could hear the frown in his voice. “You’ll embarrass me. You know I hate when you get sappy.” 

Aaand he’s back. It was nice while it lasted. Any longer and Dingo would wonder if the hedgehogs had given Sleet head trauma. A crabby Sleet was a healthy Sleet. 

Urgent chirps rang out over the faucet’s din. Sleet silenced the comm on his belt and shut off the water. He was always being called away to take care of one thing or another in the fortress. 

“Why does he even have all these robots if he’s just going to keep relying on my labor?” Sleet complained. Quick as a flash, he was on the move, hurriedly shoving on his gauntlets. “I’ve got to go. Tch, he’s probably yelling at clouds again.” 

“Wait, Sleet!” Dingo blurted, stopping him on the spot. “Aren’t you forgettin’ something?” He extended his bandaged hand and pouted his lip. 

“What?” Sleet stared at the proffered hand. “What am I looking at?”

“Booboos get kisses,” explained Dingo. With a lofty air, he closed his eyes, mimicking what he saw the most self-important aristocrats do when they wanted their ring kissed.“ ‘Tis law.” He spoke in an affected voice. 

Sleet pushed his hand away, and Dingo thought that’d be the end of their back and forth. He was opening his eyes, about to laugh, when Sleet leaned forward, muzzle zeroing in like a heat-seeking missile. 

Cold nose leather pressed into Dingo’s cheek, the warmth of pursed lips shocking his system further still. Sleet’s kiss had all the gentleness of a piston, fast, forceful, as if he had something he needed to prove. Just as soon as he planted them, Sleet withdrew his lips. They released with a smack that seemed to resound through the med bay. 

“For your face,” he said, smirking as Dingo gawked at him. “It’s a rather large booboo.” Sleet rose, turned with a cape swish, and began walking toward the door as though nothing had even happened. 

The combined strength of ear scritches and now a kiss helped Dingo rediscover his nerve all at once. Before Sleet got too far away, an idea graced Dingo, flashing into his mind. A grin most mischievous tore across his face. Two could play that game. 

Ignoring the tingling fallen asleep sensation in his limbs, he pushed himself off the exam table, first creeping up close on Sleet’s heels, then bursting into action. Dingo snatched him up into his arms and dealt a rapid-fire barrage of wet kisses along his neck. 

“Ack!” the wolf twisted and squawked in surprise. “Dingo!” He chided through adorable little bursts of laughter. “What is the meaning of this?! Quit slobbering on me!”

“I’m just returnin’ the—mwah!— favor. You’re always sayin’—mwah!—I’m a pain in the neck!” He began doubling back around, making sure he’d covered every possible spot, until Sleet reached up and cinched Dingo’s lips shut. 

“Alright, enough.” Sleet suddenly looked uncomfortable. His voice was edged, tense. “Put me down.” 

Dingo couldn’t have helped him down faster. He gave Sleet room to dust his chestplate off and smarten up his cape. What’d he do? Had he hurt him? But he didn’t look hurt. Despite the worry that had his stomach in a vice grip, Dingo remained quiet, not wanting to make things worse. 

In two brisk officerial swipes, Sleet swatted away the orange hair flecking his pauldrons. He straightened, throwing his shoulders back and folding his arms behind him. “We’re professionals,” he reminded sternly, tone somewhere between disappointment and irritation. 

Dingo kept his head low and his ears back. Too many kisses, he thought. After the elevator event, Sleet and him began entertaining repartees of a more playful persuasion. It wasn’t a conscious effort.  It just . . . happened. One thing led into another and in no time Robotnik was yelling at them for forgetting to cut the comm line. 

But it was only a bit of sport between friends. Empty talk, ribbing, just like Dingo used to with his pub mates in Tralius. Sleet never pushed it further than casual flirting, and Dingo, scared he might ruin their dynamic, never broached the idea of developing it into something more.

There was a line, and Dingo, in his blind enthusiasm, had just crossed it.

“Right. Professionals,” he said, automatic and soldierly. “Won’t happen again.” He added in his natural voice. “I’m sorry, Sleet. I-I didn’t mean to overwhelm you.” 

A corner of Sleet’s mouth twitched, and his jaws parted slightly. Whatever he’d planned on saying, he quickly reconsidered. “I have to go,” he said again. He hurried away without another word.

Dingo felt the tug to call after him and wish him a good meeting, but decided against it. His hand, which he’d initially raised in preparation for a wave, hovered over his cheek. When Sleet’s footsteps became so distant that he’d need to strain to hear them, he murmured sadly to himself.  “Professionals . . . ”

Before today, Dingo had never heard of such a thing as an echidna. Frankly he still wasn’t sure exactly what echidnas were. But the lone ambassador of the species had made a significant impression. 

An impression here, an impression there, one really big impression right in his stomach that had nearly made Dingo cough up his spleen.  

Knuckles the Echidna thoroughly trounced him. This indignity left him angry, confused, and a little scared. 

Allegedly.

Just a little. 

“You’re sure you don’t want the medbot to treat you?” Sleet asked while piloting the Whiptail. 

Seated beside him, Dingo shook his head, then immediately regretted doing so. He winced and pawed at his skull. This must’ve been what so many Freedom Fighters felt like after going head-to-head with him. He didn’t like it. “I can wait ‘til we get back home.” The fortress wasn’t much of a home in the traditional sense, but describing it as such made the whole contractually bound to a tyrannical egg-shaped man situation less dreary. Plus, home rolled off the tongue easier than fortress. 

Sleet’s face appeared troubled. He’d been giving Dingo these weird glances from the very moment they embarked, bright yellow eyes darting from rain-misted windshield to mutant and back again. Dingo didn’t understand. A concussion and some flesh wounds, that’s all this was. True, Dingo came out of the fight looking a bit rougher than usual. The gashes he received from Knuckles’ spiked gloves were red and deep, and the kid’s pet dinosaur packed a nasty bite. 

But he was still standing, wasn’t he? He bandaged up the worst of the damage himself using Angel Island’s natural resources; the stuff there wasn’t much different from what was found in the Tralian bush. Sleet had nothing to worry about. Was there some other reason he kept glancing over? Was he judging him, judging his worth? 

“What?” Dingo challenged when Sleet’s eyes came his way again. 

“I’m making sure you’re not bleeding all over the Whiptail,” Sleet said matter-of-fact, eyes flitting back to the dreary skies ahead. “I just had the interior cleaned.”

“ ‘Course not! I never bleed!” Dingo did bleed. There was blood beading from his countless superficial scrapes as they spoke. He tasted blood at the back of his throat. But that didn’t matter. He had a point to make. “Good luck finding someone who doesn’t bleed and by good luck I really mean bad luck! Because you won’t!”

“Uh-huhhh . . . good to know? What are you getting at? You’re making even less sense than usual.” 

“Oh,” Dingo said, settling back down and feeling his body lighten with relief. He was being muffinbrained, worrying over the imaginary. “Sorry about that. Mondays, amirite? Guess I’m still a bit fired up from—” Dingo went to flex. “Ow!”  A staggering jolt of full body pain put a quick stop to his gun show. 

Furious his own body was betraying him, he raged. “Grrah! Shouldn’t the pain ‘ave stopped by now?! Why are my cuts still open?!” His jaws itched terribly with the urge to bite down and tear into something. 

“That, I am unsure,” Sleet admitted, “Exhaustion, stress, dehydration? Perhaps the island’s atmosphere affected you? In spite of my uncanny intellect, there are things about you that remain a mystery to me.”

The tightness in Dingo’s jaws eased. Him, mysterious? He could have blushed. Sleet was the one who rode motorcycles. Traditionally, that alone made him more of the rebellious mysterious type. 

“But if my wounds stay like this . . . ” Dingo mused aloud. Cold hard realization sank in his chest. Ears drooping, he frowned and muttered.  “Guess this means no bubble bath.” 

Dingo took offense to the commonly held belief among Freedom Fighters that he was unkempt. Sleet might’ve not been overly fussed about good coat health, but Dingo’s fur gleamed. All the better to accentuate his muscles, and after a hard day’s work of bashing skulls, there was nothing more refreshing than taking a warm soak.  

“I’ll clean you,” Sleet said readily. Dingo turned to him, confused. Embarrassment flashed across Sleet’s face before he quickly amended. “Your wounds, I mean. I trust that you know how to use a shower without assistance.”

“Ah. That makes more sense.”

Sleet continued. “Wound care requires a delicate, artful hand. Luckily for you, my hands are free until further notice.”

Before, when their days weren’t so hectic and demanding, he might have politely objected with an “Oh, y’don’t have to do that.” or a “No worries, I got it.” His busted lips started to form one such declination until he realized the novelty of Sleet’s proposal. He closed his mouth, considering. Some pampering would be nice. He more than deserved it after the beatdown he’d endured. 

“Thanks,” Dingo smiled at Sleet, who redoubled his efforts to look cool and aloof. That simply wouldn’t do. “Howsabout the whole spa treatment while you’re at it? Y’know, a massage? Mud mask? Ooo! Those little fishes that nibble at your feet?!”

Sleet’s brows creased. “Mhm, I don’t know if I’ll have the time for all that. Robotnik—”

Dingo laughed, though not as long nor full-throated as usual. His abdomen was too sore for it. “I’m kidding ya, Sleet! I mean, where would you even find the fish?” 

“Oh,” said Sleet, looking slightly abashed. He shrugged and put his poker face back on. “Just as well. Too much attention could go to your head, and you’re topheavy enough as is.”

With the majority of the Empire’s forces being robotic, the medbay was almost exclusively used by the two bounty hunters, and rarely at that. More often Sleet relied on the medbot unit attached to his belt or the Whiptail’s first aid kit. 

Dingo found the space a touch too sterile. It reminded him of the glorified tuna cans Robotnik called outposts. But unlike those, the motivational cat poster and other flourishes Dingo put up sometime ago did little to shift the atmosphere. No one ever enjoyed going to the doctor’s office. The same principle applied to the medbay. 

Fortunately, he had an attentive nurse. A bit crummy in the way of bedside manner and conversation, but attentive nevertheless. Sleet handled him like he handled delicate machinery or his favorite expensive silks, if not better. Laser-focused, he wasn’t even humming as he usually did when he worked. Dingo wished he had. The buzz of the lights’ overhead was really starting to annoy him.

Since Dingo’s healing factor was amiss, it was up to Sleet to go in and manually remove what couldn’t be flushed out. Definitely a job for delicate, artful hands. 

“Steady,” Sleet warned. Dingo tensed and sucked in a pained breath as he felt the tweezer sink further, metal points nicking his flesh and latching onto something hidden deep within. It took some wiggling for whatever he’d captured to finally dislodge from its burrow. Sleet, face tight with concentration, pulled the object free. 

Dingo grunted upon its exit. Immediately, blood oozed down his arm. He was glad for the warmth. In the tweezers’ metal jaws was yet another shard, thicker and more jagged than those fished out before. 

“Tricky thing,” Sleet muttered, giving the impressively sized splinter an once over.  He then placed it into a pan, reuniting it with the rest of the excavated debris. “That should be all of it. The pieces almost fit together. Looks unremarkable, but I’ll give it to Lionel or one of the other intellectual dweebs, just to be sure it’s not tipped with some sort of poison.” 

“‘Dweebs’?” That was one of Dingo’s words, one he would have never expected to come out of Sleet’s mouth. “Heh, that’s new. Do it again!” 

“It’s a good word,” Sleet confessed. 

“I’m really rubbin’ off on ya, huh?” 

“Let’s hope it’s not terminal.”

Dingo snorted a laugh. He wasn’t entirely sure what terminal meant, but he knew the comment was all in good fun. Aside from the sarcasm, figures of speech, and the occasional overly long smarty-smart word, Sleet wasn’t that hard to decode. “Soon enough we’ll be finishin’ each other’s, er . . . ”

“Sentences.”

“Exactly!” 

Sleet refocused, applying gauze and pressure to Dingo’s shoulder and dabbing up spilled blood. Quiet reigned again. 

Thinking about what Sleet said, Dingo considered the pan’s contents with newfound interest. Poison? He wanted that to be true. The echidna must’ve cheated, and that’s why he was out of sorts. That’s why he lost. Inwardly, Dingo sighed. 

Then he noticed Sleet dousing a rag with pungent antiseptic gel and his sense of relief abandoned him. 

“Maybe this one can go without antisept,” he tried bargaining. “Wouldn’t want to use the whole bottle on lil’ ol’ me.” 

“There’s plenty more in the cabinet.” Well, there went his one and only idea of how to get out of this. 

Sleet started counting down, as he had before treating the previous lacerations. He’d been afraid Dingo might startle and flail. Reasonable enough of a fear. When you’re several hundred pounds of brute strength, every limb became a weapon. 

Dingo’s muscles bunched tight and his teeth gritted as he braced for impact. Cloth touched skin, and a searing pain lanced the mutant from shoulder to fingertip. He only just fought back a roar, muzzle wrinkling in a silent snarl. Why did it have to be so burny? All these technological advancements, yet no one’s figured out how to make an antiseptic that doesn’t burn. 

Sleet’s praise made the ordeal slightly more bearable. “Well done, Dingo.” 

The gash fizzed and bubbled. When the frothy activity died out, so did the burning, replaced by a numbing chill as the anti-sept congealed and hardened to become a gummy blue-toned paste. His arm went heavy. Barring its medicinal odor, Dingo always thought antisept looked a little appetizing in this stage, like a sliver of gelatin or jam. 

He’d tasted it once. Once was more than enough. 

“It’s curious,” remarked Sleet as he began dressing Dingo’s shoulder, “how you can withstand tank missiles and pulse cannons and not make so much as a peep, yet the everyday antiseptic gets you squirming.”

Initially Dingo had only been half-listening. That last bit about peeps gave him a start. “W-what d’ya mean?” He couldn’t quite dampen the anxiety in his voice. “What d’ya mean by that?” Maybe his concerns hadn’t been muffinbrained after all. 

“Hm? Nothing. I was just teasing. Kiddin’ ya, as you say.” Sleet looked at him expectantly, like he was waiting for a laugh. 

Dingo could fake laugh with the best of them. The ability was something he learned very early in his profession. He had to, or else Sleet would get huffy. And Sleet, bless him, was no Comedy Chimp. 

The wolf’s observation dredged up that unpleasant feeling Dingo experienced earlier in the Whiptail, making him miss his cue. Instead of a laugh, he settled for an uneven smile, a smile he knew looked as strained as it felt to make. The jig was up. 

“Alright, what’s gotten into you?” Sleet said, hands going to his hips. “You were prickly on the way back from Angel Island, and now you’ve got t-that . . . ” He gestured at him. “That face.”

“What face? I don’t have a face,” Dingo lied. “This is my normal face.” In mere seconds the medbay became an interrogation room. Feeling naked, Dingo hunched in on himself. Sleet was looking at him with such a probing intensity, it was like he’d suddenly acquired X-Ray vision. 

“Oh, come on, Dingo. I know you. That is not your normal face.” His tone softened to a coax. “Tell me what’s wrong so I can help.” So he did have a bedside manner. And a very persuasive one at that. 

“You don’t, uh . . . ” Dingo stopped to swallow and give his chops a nervous lick. Emotion clogged his throat. For once, without any help from the transmogrifying remote, he felt so small. “You don’t think I’m losing my edge, do you, Sleet?”

He usually didn’t have an issue being vulnerable. Shame was a feeling he seldom experienced. But it’d been so long since someone had intimidated him this badly. Sonic, Manic, they weren’t so much scary as they were annoying. Pests to swat away. Sonia, she gave him a fun challenge. Spats with her worked up a nice muscle burn. 

By contrast, Knuckles was an immovable, deceptively unsquishable object. The only thing possibly more intimidating was the thought of asking Sleet out on a date. 

“You suplexed a dinosaur today. I’d hardly call that losing your edge.” 

“Well, yeah, but—” Mumbling, he went to rub and futz at his arm. Sleet reminded him of the bandages, and he stopped his fidgeting—“it was kinda small, an’ I coulda suplexed it harder.” 

“You suplexed a dinosaur,” Sleet repeated. “Believe me, Dingo, if I was concerned about your combat abilities, you would know.”

Dingo guessed he couldn’t argue with that. Sleet never turned down an opportunity to find faults and carp. It didn’t change the fact that Dingo lost. Whether the spike was poisoned or not didn’t matter. Years ago he wouldn’t have let the little hermit get close enough to land a single hit.

 He looked away and beseeched the cat poster for protection from Sleet’s soul-boring gaze. A forceful but not unfriendly chin grab pulled him back. Still, he refused to make eye contact. 

“Help me understand. You’ve lost before. Sophie—”

“Sonia.”

“—Sonia’s bested you time and time again. You didn’t lose spirit then.”

“Sonia don’t fly.”

“What?”

“He flies.”

Sleet’s brows scrunched in confusion. He paused, visibly considering the physics of such a feat before giving his head a firm shake. “Nevermind that. Everyone has a gimmick now. Look at me, Dingo.” 

Dingo reluctantly obliged. Once their eyes locked, he couldn’t have tore away even if he tried. There was something new there in Sleet’s gaze, something meaningful and almost tender. 

“Someone told me once there was no shame in losing, and that you’ve only really lost if you don’t learn from your failures. There will be more days. More failures. Defeat is hard. Painful, mostly. Still, there’s value there. The echidna may have gotten the better of you today, but now we know what to expect. What weaknesses to exploit.”

“I don’t know, Sleet. I-I don’t think that kid’s got any weaknesses. He fought like a de—” Sleet’s hand alighted upon the space behind Dingo’s floppy ear and began slowly scratching. Maybe it was his imagination, but to Dingo it seemed every ache, pain, and worry weakened. The curative properties of ear scritches far exceeded that of anything the medbay could provide.  Honing in on the gentle pressure of each slender fingertip caressing his skull, he slipped into a near meditative state. 

“Everyone has a weakness,” Sleet assured. “Perhaps Knuckles’ weakness is not physical, but emotional. Perhaps, before you break his bones, I must break his spirit. All in good time.” 

For Sleet, this was an unusual amount of physical contact, especially considering he wasn’t getting anything in return. Nothing tangible anyway. Even during their elevator interaction two months back, incredibly physical as it was, Sleet had done so to better himself. Dingo was just being helpful. 

Maybe Robotnik had rewarded Sleet and that’d boosted his mood. Maybe he just liked the way Dingo’s ears felt. They were silky smooth after all. About time someone noticed and appreciated his work. He stopped wondering, deciding to enjoy the moment. 

“First you need rest, and I need readings on that spike.” 

Ensorcelled by ear scritches, it didn’t dawn on Dingo that Sleet had moved away until he heard the sink turn on. He opened his eyes to see him getting everything in order, collecting equipment to clean and tossing soiled gauze. Dingo looked down at himself and discovered he was all patched up. “Wow. You work fast. So, hey, Sleet, who’s this ‘someone’ bloke?” His back turned, Sleet stopped mid-scrub. “Kiddin’! I’m kiddin’! I knew you were talkin’ about me. I’m not that bad.” 

Sleet looked ceilingward and sighed. He sounded relieved, as if he’d just been told good news about a mysterious rash. “You make it so hard to tell.”

Dingo grinned toothily, then composed himself. “Thanks, Sleet. For everything.”

Sleet’s tail twitched, and his bearing went stiff. “Don’t go and make a big deal out of it,” he mumbled. Dingo could hear the frown in his voice. “You’ll embarrass me. You know I hate when you get sappy.” 

Aaand he’s back. It was nice while it lasted. Any longer and Dingo would wonder if the hedgehogs had given Sleet head trauma. A crabby Sleet was a healthy Sleet. 

Urgent chirps rang out over the faucet’s din. Sleet silenced the comm on his belt and shut off the water. He was always being called away to take care of one thing or another in the fortress. 

“Why does he even have all these robots if he’s just going to keep relying on my labor?” Sleet complained. Quick as a flash, he was on the move, hurriedly shoving on his gauntlets. “I’ve got to go. Tch, he’s probably yelling at clouds again.” 

“Wait, Sleet!” Dingo blurted, stopping him on the spot. “Aren’t you forgettin’ something?” He extended his bandaged hand and pouted his lip. 

“What?” Sleet stared at the proffered hand. “What am I looking at?”

“Booboos get kisses,” explained Dingo. With a lofty air, he closed his eyes, mimicking what he saw the most self-important aristocrats do when they wanted their ring kissed.“ ‘Tis law.” He spoke in an affected voice. 

Sleet pushed his hand away, and Dingo thought that’d be the end of their back and forth. He was opening his eyes, about to laugh, when Sleet leaned forward, muzzle zeroing in like a heat-seeking missile. 

Cold nose leather pressed into Dingo’s cheek, the warmth of pursed lips shocking his system further still. Sleet’s kiss had all the gentleness of a piston, fast, forceful, as if he had something he needed to prove. Just as soon as he planted them, Sleet withdrew his lips. They released with a smack that seemed to resound through the med bay.