Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Vector had done some pretty good things.

He’d moved out at seventeen. That felt important to remember. Started a detective agency at nineteen. That was pretty cool, too. Paperwork for those things was a nightmare. He. . . had good music taste. Lots of people didn’t have good music taste. And he made sure that people knew that, too. That’s why he wore his headphones all the time. Just in case somebody someday asked him, ‘What are you listening to?’ and then he could go, ‘Oh, y’know, underground rap, hardcore rock. Pretty gnarly stuff.’

Nobody had asked him that, yet.

Maybe someday one of his clients would. If he could get any clients.

He’d had one case since the agency had opened a couple weeks ago. Some lady had seen footprints in her garden and gotten worried about potential burglars casing her house. Vector had staked out from the alley across the street for a couple nights, but seen nothing. Eventually, he’d had to admit that if there was someone sniffing around, they’d probably seen him and avoided the place.

Subtlety was not his strong suit.

He trudged inside and collapsed into the big, ratty chair behind his desk with a groan. He massaged his temple and winced at the sun rising through the windows. He was still young. Shouldn’t he still be able to pull all-nighters? He’d thought he wasn’t supposed to get old and lame until he was. . . well, older. Thirty at least.

Maybe it was just a stress headache, more than exhaustion. It turned out ‘Open a detective agency’ was a completely different mark off his bucket list than ‘Get clients for aforementioned agency,’ as well as ‘Keep aforementioned agency open with money from aforementioned clients.’

Aforementioned. Fun word. He should find a way to work it into conversation. That was fun, when he randomly remembered a big word he could stick into a sentence. Nobody expected him to use anything longer than five-letter words, so it was always nice to see them fumble a little when he used something even moderately complex. Everyone always looked at him like he’d just grown a second head.

A second head might be nice. Then one could sleep while the other worked on finding clients.

He watched the ceiling fan spin lazily and wondered how much power that was taking up.

“Success!”

Vector jumped with a rather undignified yelp at the sudden new voice, practically launching himself from his chair. He scrambled to his feet.

“Geez, can you knock?” he snapped, gaze flitting about the room to find the offender.

“But that would defeat the entire purpose of the exercise,” came the smug reply. From. . . somewhere.

“Where the hell are you, anyways?” Vector demanded, fists balling by his sides. “I’m not in the mood for games right about now!”

It was a strange experience, seeing someone materialize before his very eyes. Vector blinked and rubbed his eyes a few times and wondered if just a couple nights of bad sleep was making him crazy.

But, no. There, on the dusty rug right in front of his desk, arms crossed and smile triumphant, stood a kid.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” he began with a little bow. “I am Espio the chameleon.”

Huh. Vector had never seen a chameleon before. He looked. . . small.

“And I am here with an offer that I think will be mutually beneficial.”

Quite a vocabulary for. . . what, ten? Eleven? Maybe twelve at the absolute oldest. Too young for whatever he was about to say.

“I have been observing you and your investigative endeavors for a few days now.”

Were chameleons supposed to be that skinny? He was really skinny.

“How have you not noticed me, you ask?”

Dirty, too. Was that blood on his arm?

“Well, because of my powers of invisibility, of course!”

Again, the kid — Espio, apparently — blinked in and out of view once or twice, as though he were swallowed by the air.

Yeah, that was definitely blood.

“I believe I could be a valuable asset as a business partner to Chaotix Detective Agency,” Espio continued. Looked like he was wrapping up now. “In exchange for some of the fee for each case, I will assist you in solving your cases using my superior stealth and martial arts training, which I have just demonstrated by infiltrating your headquarters without detection. For example, I could hide much more effectively during stakeouts, such as the one you were on last night —”

Vector stiffened. “How do you know about that?”

“And I —” Espio paused and scowled at him, clearly annoyed at having his well-practiced speech interrupted. “I just told you, I’ve been observing.”

“Following me?”

“Watching.”

“Stalking.”

“Researching.” He flicked a hand and continued on the memorized spiel. “And I can spy and gather evidence without anyone even knowing I’m there.” He straightened up once more. “I believe this could be a partnership that would mark this detective agency as one of the most successful in the city. But, I leave that up to you.”

With that, Espio took a deep breath and rested his hands on his hips, smiling proudly. He gave Vector an expectant look. Vector stared back at him, baffled. With so many questions running through his head, he asked the only one that took clear form.

“Where are your parents?”

Espio’s expression curdled like lemon juice into cream. He looked away. “I hardly see how that’s a relevant question,” he muttered.

“Well, try to see how I see it,” Vector huffed. He sat back down and pulled his chair up to the desk. They were almost eye-level now. Vector was still a bit taller. “I don’t get many kids in here asking for jobs.”

“A business partnership.”

Vector raised an eyebrow at him. “Yeah, money in exchange for working for me? That’s a job, kid.”

Espio scowled at the carpet but said nothing.

Vector sighed and pinched his brow. “Are you in trouble or something, kid? Because I got a few numbers when I started this, people in social services, I can  —”

“No!” Espio stiffened suddenly. “No, I just — I just need some money. A job. I need a job.”

Vector frowned at him. “Why?”

Again, nothing.

He massaged his temple. “Alright, you wanna be a detective?” he challenged. “Follow my line of thinking here, alright? Usually, adults are the ones working jobs to make money for kids, right?”

Espio shuffled his feet. “Ideally.”

“Ideally. So, kids don’t usually need jobs, right?”

“Ideally.”

“Ideally. So, when a kid —”

“Stop calling me that.”

“. . . When a person your age comes in asking for a job, that implies to me that they don’t have any adults to take care of them.” He raised his eyebrows. “Am I right? If I’m not, tell me where my logic went wrong.”

Espio stared intently at a rip in the wallpaper, just over Vector’s shoulder. “My family is not in the picture,” he muttered, his voice barely audible.

Vector nodded slowly. “So you do need help.”

“I need a job,” Espio repeated, slowly, firmly. “I just — I just need an income, a steady income, and I’ll — I’ll be able to work something out.” He looked up anxiously. “Anyways, this is good, right?” he persisted. “This is something good I can do? This will help people. I can help people doing this.”

Vector sighed again and rubbed the back of his neck. He couldn’t hire a kid, the thought was crazy. But Espio looked so earnest, so desperate. What was going on with him? What got this little verbose knock-kneed kid filthy and underfed and begging for jobs from strangers? Vector was a detective. He knew the darker sides of stories, what happened to kids left to fend for themselves on the streets. Hell, where he’d come from it hadn’t been safe for him or any of his brothers to be out alone after dark, even as crocodiles. If he turned this kid down now, he’d end up back in the gutter, alone, and then what? Vector knew what. He couldn’t let that happen on his watch.

Maybe he could do a little investigating himself. Poke around, find out where he’d come from, what had happened to drive him out here.

And a bit more selfishly. . . in the meantime, maybe having a detective with invisibility powers wouldn’t be the worst for business.

He leaned back and studied Espio intently. Espio studied him right back.

“I wouldn’t exactly call this a steady income,” Vector warned.

“Well,” Espio shrugged, “it’s something, isn’t it?”

Vector chuckled weakly. “Ideally.”

Espio grinned in relief. “Ideally.”

They shook on it — though Vector still wasn’t entirely sure what ‘it’ was — and when he sat back, Espio rocked back on his heels and glanced about uncertainly.

“So. . . shall I help you stake out that house?” he suggested.

“Later tonight,” Vector replied, pushing himself from his chair. “First priority is getting you a damn shower.”

“Excuse me!”

That night, Espio waited in the alley while Vector parked two streets away. He spent the whole night clutching a radio, waiting for any word of trouble or danger to come barging in. He heard nothing until just before sunrise. A brief, simple, ‘Got him.’ Vector came to find the perpetrator tied down, Espio sitting on his back with a blade to his neck. He looked at Vector expectantly. Vector had nothing to say but, “Uh. . . Wow.”

And suddenly, Chaotix Detective Agency was in business.

Espio slept on the couch in the office for a couple weeks, until they managed to get a rickety secondhand bed into the second bedroom, in the apartment above the office. Vector had wanted to use it as a music room or home gym or something. Now it was Espio’s room. That was fine, too, he decided.

Espio was a strange kid. Very serious. He listened intently to everything he was told and worked hard with a fervent dedication. He hardly spoke, spent long hours training every morning with a concerning collection of sharp objects, more hours meditating every evening, and his idea of fun genuinely seemed to be balancing the logbook. That, Vector didn’t mind much. He could run an agency and file paperwork, but there was nothing he hated more than math. Espio, on the other hand, could run through it very quickly and very efficiently. Which meant that he was in charge of the logbook now. Which also meant he suddenly had a lot of opinions about how the money was spent.

They got more cases. A few. Enough to pay the rent and keep the fridge stocked with frozen pizzas and the pantry with canned soup and boxed mac-and-cheese. They worked all day and spent the evenings watching old sitcoms on TV or listening to music. Vector liked rock and rap and electro. Espio liked classical and jazz and old, soulful funk. Vector liked to just sit and listen. Espio liked to read while the records played. He would sit on the rug with whatever book he could find open on his lap and painstakingly sound out every word under his breath. He’d get caught up, sometimes, muttering the same few sounds over and over to himself before pushing through and moving on. He seemed to struggle reading anything other than numbers, but insisted that he could figure it out.

“I need to,” he said one night, frowning at the words as he curled up on the rug, leaning back against the couch. “I have to figure out how to read this language eventually.”

Vector had paused on that, then opened his eyes. “This language?”

“Yes.”

“Do you speak another language?”

Espio looked up at him, befuddled. “Where do you think my accent came from?”

“You have an accent?”

He rolled his eyes and turned back to the book. “Everyone has an accent, Vector, it’s part of spoken language.”

“I mean, I don’t.”

“Yes you do!”

“Ugh, whatever.” He frowned, fidgeting with the chain around his neck. “You speak pretty fancy for someone who’s just learning.”

“No, I’ve spoken it conversationally for a few years now,” Espio explained. “I’ve just not learned to read it yet.”

“Ah, I see.” Vector tilted his head. “Still, awful formal.”

“I had a very formal education.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“What kind?”

“I’m reading.”

Vector sighed and settled back again. “Alright,” he muttered. “Have it your way.”

Espio made no further response. Disappointed but resigned, Vector closed his eyes again. The old-time funk continued playing softly on the crackly record.

After a long pause, Espio tapped his shoulder.

“What’s this word?” he asked, pointing to a line in the book.

Vector opened his eyes again. “‘Rectify.’”

“What does it mean?”

“Make amends. Like, fix a mistake or something.”

“Ah.”

Ten minutes later, again.

“What is this word?”

“‘Contrived.’ Means unnecessarily complicated.”

“I see.”

Vector closed his eyes again.

“And this one?”

He sighed, but answered anyways.

Vector tried to poke around a little bit. He tried to see where this kid may have come from, tried to sniff out any other chameleons in the area. But, for all his prowess as a self-proclaimed detective, all this sleuthing turned up nothing. It seemed like Espio really did just appeared out of thin air in his office that day.

Espio didn’t tell him much of anything, either. The most that Vector managed to get from him was that he was eleven years old and that he’d grown up ‘out of town.’ Vector tried to make the kid comfortable, show that he could be trusted, but Espio seemed to regard him as very little more than a work colleague. A work colleague he could sass, sure — Gaia knew he had to put up with plenty of snippy remarks — but not one to share his life story with. He stonewalled at every attempt to pry, however subtle, and he glared viciously at anyone who asked, ‘Where is your mother?’ Vector understood now why that question had pissed him off so much when he’d asked. After a few months of ‘concerned bystanders’ asking at every opening, it got pretty damn old.

After a few weeks, that dirty, skinny kid who had appeared in Vector’s office became unrecognizable. Espio was growing. He turned twelve and flippantly mentioned it two weeks later, much to Vector’s dismay. He gained some weight. Not much, he was still scrawny and tripping over limbs that seemed to be growing too long, too quickly for him to keep track of. But he didn’t look like he’d blow over at every stiff breeze anymore. The color in his scales grew a touch more vibrant.

Maybe Vector could’ve looked harder. Maybe he should have. Maybe it was irresponsible. Maybe his family was looking for him. But Espio was a good detective, he was clever and observant and brave, and he was a hard worker, and he was learning to read Common Tongue and very proud of it, and he was getting taller, and he was getting better with those throwing knives he carried, and his whole face lit up so much every time they found a clue or solved a case, and Vector had made him laugh — laugh — twice. And. . . well, the kid had good judgment. If he decided that he needed to leave wherever it was that he’d come from, then Vector could trust him in that.

It had been ten days of late nights and too much reading. The entire agency was dark but for the desk lamp on Vector’s big desk and the TV left on upstairs that Espio had forgotten to turn off. If they had been passing on the street, they would’ve seen nothing but a faint flickering in the upstairs window. But they weren’t on the street. They were in the office.

 The deadline was closing in and if they didn’t reach a conclusion soon, they wouldn’t get paid another dime. And, given the number of rent reminders that had been pushed through the mail slot, they needed a lot of dimes.

Vector was hunched over the desk, reading and rereading the expense reports that he knew had discrepancies that he just couldn’t see. The words and numbers were all starting to blur together. He sighed and sat back, rubbing a crick out of the back of his neck.

“Es, you got anything in the bank statements?” he mumbled.

When he received no response, he turned back to the couch. Espio was lying on his side, one arm tucked under his head, the other hanging off the couch, the bank statements slipping from his grip. Fast asleep.

Vector could resist a small smile. It had been a long week. Espio had been putting in a lot of work, pulling nights just as late as Vector. They needed to wrap this up soon, but he’d earned a little rest. Vector stood, grabbed the blanket from the back of the couch, and pulled it over him, before gently sliding the bank statements from his hand. He sat back and continued reading. He wondered if he should carry Espio up to his room. Then he discarded the thought.

It was quiet. Even in the heart of the city, there was always a few minutes a night that the entire world went soft and still. Brief snatched of silence before a car would rumble past or someone would shout on the street and the world kept turning again. It was peaceful. It was the one thing Vector liked about these late nights, those seconds of peace in such a hectic world.

After half an hour of this silence, Espio whimpered.

Vector blinked, uncertain of the noise at first. At another, he turned back to the couch.

“Es?”

Espio was still asleep, but his face was twisted, his mouth pressed into a thin line.

Vector hesitantly reached towards him. “Kid?”

Espio’s hand twitched, a leg kicked out, and, with a sharp, stifled gasp, he was awake. He didn’t sit up, didn’t make any noise more than that. Just laid there, stiff as a board, breath hissing rapidly in and out, fingers digging into the couch cushion, as his eyes flickered about. Like he was waiting to be attacked.

Vector cautiously leaned into his line of vision. “Espio?” he ventured. “You alright there, bud?”

Espio just recoiled and stared blankly at him, his wide eyes full of fear and void of recognition.

“Es, kid, it’s me. Vector? Your. . . boss?”

The young chameleon blinked. Once. Twice. He exhaled slowly and averted his gaze to the blanket around his shoulders, blinking at it in soft bewilderment. He tugged on the hem, as though confused as to where it had come from.

Slowly, Vector leaned back. “You alright?” he repeated.

“I apologize,” Espio mumbled instead of answering. He sat up. The blanket fell around his tail. “I should not have been slacking on my duties. Forgive me.”

Vector’s brow knit. Every apology from this kid sounded so concerningly formal. “It’s fine, bud, don’t worry about it.”

Espio rubbed his eyes and yawned. When he slid off the couch, he swayed dangerously on his feet. “Where did the bank statements go?” he mumbled, stifling another yawn. “I was almost finished with them.”

Vector waved a hand dismissively. “I got it, kid,” he assured him. “You go get some sleep.”

Espio hesitated. “I did not mean to leave the work unfinished.”

“I told you, it’s fine. You go on up to bed, okay? You’ve earned it. I’ll finish up here.”

Espio frowned uncertainly at him, as though he didn’t fully trust the offer. But then he yawned again and, try as he might to stifle it, he couldn’t. And for just a moment, in his sleepy haze, Vector saw his mask slip, heard a few words that were too sincere to be intentional.

“Promise you’re not angry?” he mumbled.

Vector paused. Espio had never asked something like that so straightforwardly before. He tilted his head. “No, Es, I’m not mad. I just. . .” His voice died in his throat, all his questions about the nightmare and the fear and the mistrust, when Espio looked at him with that trepidation again. “No, I’m not mad. Go get some sleep.”

Espio watched him for a moment more, trying to puzzle out some hidden resentment or disappointment in Vector’s expression. Finding none, he looked away and nodded.

“Goodnight, then.”

“Night, kid.”

He took the blanket with him. He didn’t seem to notice.

“What is this word?”

“Um. . . os. . . ostensibly?”

“What does it mean?”

“Mmmm, actually not sure.”

“Hmph. Where’s your dictionary?”

“Don’t have one.”

“What kind of person doesn’t have a dictionary?”

“The one who’s signing your paychecks!”

“Is this blackmail?”

“The word you’re looking for is extortion.”

“No, it’s not. Extortion implies that you gain something.”

“I’m gaining your respect.”

“My tolerance, maybe.”

 “Gaia — just skip the word. We’ll go to the library tomorrow or something and you can look it up.”

“Tch. Fine. I’ll write it down so I don’t forget it.”

“Fantastic. Now shut up, this is my favorite song.”

Chapter Text

Espio was fascinated with words.

He’d learned very quickly, moving to an area where Common was spoken more. . . well, commonly, that he had a very limited vocabulary in it. All his lessons had been so formal, so eloquent, that they’d neglected to teach him slang words or simple terms for simple things, to where he found himself asking Vector what a wharf was as they stood right on one, what was a vinyl and what’s the difference between a cuckoo and grandfather clock and what does for the love of fuck mean.

He started writing them down. Words he liked and all that came with them. Just quick things jotted on the back of scrap paper. Most he kept in his desk drawer. Some he lost track of.

Cuckoo

Small wooden intricate tiny bird she shows her face and sings the hour and time is told in feathers and flitting wings

Grandfather

Something named for the old the wise the loved the stern and aged and known, big and dark and deep ringing signal the turn in commanding tones, call the whole clan to noon

The dictionary that they’d gotten at the thrift store helped with some of the words in books, but others were more complex, more contextual. Those, Vector was often pretty good at explaining.

“What does ‘debut’ mean? This vinyl says ‘debut’.”

“It means it’s their first album. ‘Debut’ means the first time showing someone something, kinda.”

Debut

Newness and trust, here it is and here is me and I give it to the open air and hope for a single wink back

Once I was alone and showed myself on the ratty rug in the office, a debut of desperation, you said come in and sit down and make another and now I live upstairs

“What is ‘cinematic’?”

“Like. . . like a movie. Big, dramatic, pretty, like it looks like it was made to be seen on screen.”

Cinematic

All so loud so proud so bold so undersold and too much to swallow, all the world a heavy pill on my tongue that doesn ’t dissolve

He found himself enjoying the writing almost as much as the words themselves. Interesting to see words in his own hands, shifted by his own tongue and made into something else completely. He collected words in every language. In Common and his native tongue and everything else that he could find, anything he liked the sound of or the meaning attached to it. Just the act of learning a language had made him hunger for every word he could get his hands on, made him appreciate him every one he’d heard a thousand times before and every new one he could find.

Whatever the word for this was, he liked it.

————————————————

“What’s this?”

Espio’s heart dropped when he saw the bit of paper that Vector held. “It’s just —” He lunged across the desk and snatched it from his hand. “Nothing.” He folded it and attempted to stuff it into his glove. “It’s nothing, don’t worry.”

Vector’s teeth glittered in that teasing grin. “Was that a poem?”

“No!” Espio snapped. “It’s just — a list. It’s a list of words. You told me what punk meant the other day, after you called that guy a punk, and it had a lot of meanings so I wrote them all down.”

“Do you do that a lot?”

“. . .Yes.” He glanced down at the paper and felt his face growing warm. “Sometimes.”

Punk

It ’s a movement it’s a thought it’s anger and scrappy gritty dark grim but big loud bright sharp sharp teeth and old smoke

It ’s fashion and sharp spikes and big big boots to stomp and kick and fight, it’s fighting and raging and demanding more

It ’s rude, it’s gruff it’s mean it’s a grumpy old man thing to say, you tell me, it’s something to call kids too big for their boots who sneer at you even if they may have right

‘doesn’t that make them it itself?’ I ask you ‘Anger against those who speak down and yet you do yourself with the words they choose themselves’ and you say ‘yeah that’s true’

I ask ‘are you one’ and you said ‘once, not anymore, but I still like some music’ and you show me and it is loud and shrieking and brave and filthy vulgar raw dangerous in its uncleanliness and daring in that and I can see you there once and here now still with the bruises on your scales and the smoke in your sharp sharp teeth

“It’s not. . . poetry, it’s just me trying to remember a word. Or a moment with a word.”

Vector chuckled. “You ever heard poetry?”

“Not in this language, no.”

“Well, that’s it. That’s a poem.”

“. . . Oh.”

Vector tilted his head. “That was me, right?” he asked slowly. “The you in the poem? I remember talking about that.”

Espio looked down at his shoes. He felt his face warming up. “It’s. . . yes, that was you.”

“. . . Huh.”

“Huh, what?”

Vector shrugged. “I dunno,” he mused, turning back to the desk he’d been rifling through. “Just cool to see how you see me.”

Espio shuffled his feet, squeezing the crumbled paper in his hand. “Was it. . . unflattering? I apologize if it was, I —”

Vector scoffed and waved a hand. “Don’t ever apologize for thinkin’ one way or another of someone,” he said gruffly. “Anyways, you didn’t say anything but what I said. And I liked it. The poem. It was good.”

Espio blinked. “You did?”

“Yeah. It was really cool. You really got the word, I think.”

Espio looked at him, then the paper. After a moment, he stepped forward and set it on the desk.

“You can keep it,” he offered, carefully masking that cool deadpan look over his face again. “If you liked it.”

Vector looked at him in surprise. “Really?”

“I have others. Other words. Other poems. You can keep this one.”

Vector smiled and took the paper, folding it much more carefully before tucking it into his own glove. “Thanks, kid.”

“Mhm.” He turned back to the board and tried to master his color and hide the red that was flushing around his frill.

Espio hunched over the logbook on his desk and tried to make the numbers form before his eyes. He couldn’t focus, couldn’t puzzle them out. They were fading in and out between long lists of black and red ink and the image that refused to leave his eyes, drilled in every time he blinked.

It had been six months at Vector’s. Six months that he’d liked. He had broken into that office hoping for nothing more than a bit of money and something like stability. He hadn’t expected room and board to be part of the deal — but perhaps that was just how things worked in this city. Espio had needed it, so he hadn’t questioned it. He’d figured that he could put up with living with his employer for a while, just enough to save up a bit of money. But he liked Vector, far more than he’d thought he would. He was good to work with, really fun to argue with, he was good at teaching him to read (even if he got impatient when Espio asked too many questions). And he had good music taste. Lots of people didn’t have good music taste.

It had been a big case. Missing person. They’d had a couple before — kids running away to their friend’s house, a guy hiding out from someone he’d scammed and stiffed. Espio thought he could do missing persons.

Instead of a person, they’d found a body.

Espio had found a body.

He’d gone frozen, numb, weak and distant. He didn’t even remember speaking, but he must have said something. ‘Found him. . .’ Vector had been at his side within a second of him opening that door. He’d shooed Espio outside, and there he’d stayed as police arrived, as the client came rushing in and broke down in wails at the sight of her dead husband. And Espio only stood and watched. Numb. Helpless.

He had almost wondered if he’d been forgotten, if he’d disappeared without meaning to, when a heavy hand had landed on his shoulder and Vector had guided him home.

“There’s nothin’ else we can do, kid. . .”

Espio had taken the logbook as soon as they’d returned, despite Vector insisting that he should get some rest, take a break. “It’s still business hours, I need to be productive.”

He’d been sitting for two hours, staring at the numbers with a pen hovering just over the page. But he couldn’t think. Couldn’t move.

He couldn’t see anything but that long-dead body.

All these months of careful language, of masking his every emotion — as well as he could, anyways, Vector was funny sometimes — all undone for a man that he didn’t even know. This wasn’t even the first death he’d seen, not the first body he’d seen bloody and abandoned. Why had this undone him? Why couldn’t he control himself? All that he had worked for was slipping through his fingers like a thread unraveling a scarf, all because he couldn’t fucking think.

There was a knock at his door. Although he hadn’t shed a tear, Espio quickly wiped his eyes — felt like he bruised himself in his haste — and hunched over the logbook again.

“Espio?” Vector called cautiously. “How you holding up, bud?”

Espio sniffled. “I’m working,” he croaked.

“Can I come in for a second?”

He sighed and rested his head in his hand. He wanted to turn him away, but he was still his boss. That’s what he decided on. Not that fact that Espio himself might just want some company.

“Come in.”

The door creaked open. Vector shuffled inside, making a clear but unsuccessful attempt to be quiet as he moved his massive bulk over the creaky floorboards. He set a glass of water on Espio’s desk. Espio stared at it in confusion for a moment. What had he done to earn that?

Vector cleared his throat. “I, uh, got us another case!”

Espio fought a groan. “Already?” he mumbled.

“Yeah, pretty urgent.”

“What is it?”

Espio’s bed creaked as Vector sat on it. “It’s, um, it’s the craziest thing.”

Espio finally turned in his seat, frowning at the crocodile. He was holding a small cardboard box. One that Espio recognized. It was from that sweet shop down the road, the one that was too expensive but whose mochi looked absolutely delectable.

Vector offered a hesitant smile and opened the box. Inside were three of said mochi — pristine, round, lightly dusted with flour. Espio’s eyes widened.

“That, uh, candy shop wants us to figure out which of these tastes best,” he ventured. “I’m not much of a mochi guy — it gets stuck in my teeth — and I don’t think beans should be sweet, it’s unnatural — but I told ‘em you like it, so I figured you might want to take charge on this one.”

Espio kept his eyes on the mochi as his brow dropped over his eyes. That would cost at least a day’s lunch, for both of them, a full meal tossed out for some sweets. Just because he couldn’t handle his emotions.

“I’m not stupid,” he mumbled, digging his fingers into the chair below him.

“Should be easy then, huh?”

“I know you’re just doing this to make me feel better.”

Vector sighed. Espio finally met his gaze. The croc shrugged helplessly.

“Is it working?”

That, somehow, the earnestness in his face, was what prompted Espio to take the bait, to slide off his chair and join Vector on the bed. The bait itself wasn’t so bad, either. Though he knew there was no such case, he still commented on each one as though he were ranking them.

“The taro is far too sweet,” he mumbled after finishing the first one.

 “Yeah?”

“Mhm. It’s overpowering.” He picked up the second and took a bite. “Is this coconut?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“It’s good. Not coconutty enough, though.” He swallowed. “Aftertaste of soap.”

“Huh. Good note.”

“The matcha’s really good.”

“Good.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes more. Espio slowly finished the last bit of the mochi, then dusted off his fingers on the paper wrapper before dropping it back in the empty box. Vector shut it and set it aside. He sighed heavily.

“Wild day, huh?” he muttered.

Espio snorted. He wiped his eye again. “Arduous.”

“That’s a good one.”

“Learned it yesterday.”

“Nice.” After another pause, Vector glanced at him. “You doin’ okay?”

Espio looked away and shrugged. “I’ll be alright,” he mumbled. “I think I was just startled.”

Vector patted his shoulder. Espio cringed away, and he withdrew apologetically. “I’m really sorry you had to see that, kid,” he sighed. “I should’ve gone in first.”

Espio sighed. “It’s just —” He shrugged. “I knew. Remember? Our third day on the case, I said, ‘I bet this guy’s just dead.’ I knew he was already dead. I don’t understand why it struck me so hard.”

Vector shook his head. “Still not fun to see, even if you were expecting it.”

Espio sighed. He curled his tail tightly around his wrist. “I guess.” He picked at a loose scale on the side. He was due for another shed soon. Just what he needed on top of everything else. He shook his head again. “I keep thinking, if we’d just been quicker. . .”

“Es. . .” Vector shook his head sympathetically. “It was over by the time we even got the case. There was nothing we could’ve changed, it was already done.”

Espio sniffled but said nothing more.

Vector cleared his throat. “So, Espio, listen,” he began slowly. “If you — after all this, if you don’t — I mean, I understand if you don’t want to do this anymore.”

Espio’s heart dropped. His eyes widened, but he couldn’t look away from his suddenly frozen hands.

“I’ll help you figure something out, make other arrangements. Y’know, we can find you somewhere to stay that —”

“You’re firing me?”

“What? No!”

Espio squeezed his tail in both hands, twisting slightly, hoping the light pain would distract him from the tears clogging up his throat again. “Can I ask if there’s anything else I’ve done to warrant this termination?” he whispered. “Aside from my averse reaction to the victim? Just so I can be aware at my next position.”

“Es, nobody’s firing you,” Vector repeated, grabbing his shoulder. He didn’t pull away this time, for some reason he couldn’t name. “I said if you want to! This is up to you!”

Espio shook his head. “I’ll be prepared next time,” he rasped. If he spoke any louder, he knew he’d break down. “I’ll control myself, I won’t —”

“Espio, I’m not upset that you’re crying,” Vector insisted. “I just —” He groaned and dragged a hand down his face. “Gaia, I don’t want you to get hurt doing this, kid!”

“I’m fine!” Espio cried, finally looking up at him. “I’m completely unharmed!”

“There’s more ways to be hurt, and you know it.”

“Don’t make me leave!”

“I’m not making you do anything, kid, I just don’t want to keep dragging you into these messes!” Vector sighed and rubbed his brow. “This — I don’t know what I was thinking, but this isn’t a good idea for a kid. I wanted to help, but I don’t want to make everything worse.”

“It won’t!” Espio pleaded. “I can’t leave now! I can’t leave and have that be the last thing that happened!”

Vector shook his head wearily. “This won’t be the last time this happens.”

Espio turned to face Vector more fully. “And what if next time, there is something we can do? What if we can help but I’m not there and you don’t find them in time and it doesn’t change?” He was scrambling, now, digging frantically for the right words. “You wouldn’t have found him without me! I was the one who thought of the link between his work and running group, I was the one with those connections in the black market —”

“Yeah, you haven’t gotten out of explaining that, by the way.”

“— and if I’m not here and you need me then you find another death!” He stuttered over what he knew was a grammatical error but was too stressed to address. “Anyways, I —” His train of thought was derailing, sputtering. “And I —” I like it here, I like working and living with you, I don’t want to be alone again, I don’t trust anyone but you, please don’t send me alone out there again.

He turned away. “I — I don’t know of any other place that would so willingly employ a twelve-year-old,” he mumbled.

Vector scoffed. “Gaia.” He chuckled sardonically. Espio half-wished he would try to pat his back again, but he didn’t. “Alright, kid. You wanna stay? You can stay.”

Espio exhaled heavily. His shoulders slumped in relief. “Thank you,” he murmured. “I deeply appreciate this second chance, I promise —”

“Take it easy, kid,” Vector sighed, pushing himself to his feet. “You were never in trouble. I just wanted to check on you.” He crossed his arms and frowned down at Espio. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

Not even a little bit. But he looked up and nodded anyway.

“Alright. Get some rest, yeah? It’s been a long day.”

“It’s been a strenuous day.”

Vector chuckled as he closed the door. “Yeah, you’ll be alright.”

As long as he was still here, Espio could believe that.

Chapter Text

“Someone’s outside.”

Vector looked up, squinting in the lamplight. “Wuzzat?”

Espio was sitting straight upright on the floor, newspaper beside him and dictionary open on his lap. On his other side was a bit of scrap paper where he was writing down words he liked. The record player was crackling with the last few notes of the B-side, some slower hip-hop to round out a hectic day. It had been humid and stuffy all day, so the window was cracked open to let in whatever fresh air could be found so deep in the city, cooler now that the sun had set. A car alarm began honking, then stopped, then started and stopped again as somebody shouted a frustrated curse.

Vector blinked and rubbed his eyes. “Hm?”

“Outside,” Espio repeated, voice low. His eyes were narrowed, fixed on the window. “Someone’s in the alley.”

Vector rolled his eyes and settled back again. “People go out there sometimes. We back up to, like, three other businesses.”

“I know that, but someone’s digging around the trash cans.”

Vector opened his eyes again. “What?”

To punctuate the question, out rang the clang of a trash can lid against concrete. Vector sat up and Espio shot to his feet, kunai already in hand.

“I will investigate,” the chameleon muttered. The light across him seemed to ripple, scales shifting.

“You will not,” Vector hissed, grabbing his arm before he could disappear completely. “I’ll go, you wait here!”

Espio scowled at him. “I can turn invisible.”

“You just gonna waltz out through the back door? Think nobody’ll notice it opening by itself?”

“Of course not. I was going to climb out the window and scale the wall.”

“No!”

Another clang. Vector gave Espio a warning look.

“You stay inside,” he repeated, finally releasing his arm. “You can come downstairs with me, but I need you to stay inside, as. . . the last line of defense, alright? You’re my backup.”

Espio scowled, but nodded. The two of the slipped down to the main office — well, Espio slipped, Vector stomped — and to the back door.

Now, Vector knew that Espio could handle himself. He’d seen the kid training every day, and he’d held his own and then some in the scraps they’d gotten into. But he was, still, despite everything, just a kid. Vector wasn’t going to let Espio out into something that could get him hurt, however slim the chances. Anyways, it was probably just a drifter looking for something interesting in the garbage. Vector could understand that, but he didn’t want any strangers lurking around. He just needed to scare them off. Easily done.

Vector rested his hand on the doorknob and glanced at Espio. Espio looked back, clearly irritated, and melted into the shadows. Vector just hoped he’d stay there.

With a deep breath, he kicked the door open and lumbered out. “Alright, who’s pokin’ around back here?” he barked.

The alley was silent, empty, completely dark but for the yellow light spilling from the doorway behind him. Vector frowned. Slowly, he stepped down the rickety wooden steps, stopping next to the trash cans. One of them had, indeed, been opened, the lid lying on its side and the bag inside ripped open. A couple apple cores and an empty pizza box sat on the ground. Vector glanced around one more time, shrugged, and bent to pick up the garbage.

“Damn flickies,” he muttered. He reached for a dented soda can. Something in the shadows recoiled from his hand, something that he hadn’t even noticed until it moved.

“What the —” Vector reeled back, startled. Something shifted behind him and he knew — somehow, he wasn’t sure how — that Espio had stepped into the doorway. Vector shot another warning look over his shoulder and waved at the empty space behind him, motioning for him to return inside. After another moment, the presence seemed to retreat. He turned back to the shadow, the little shelter created by a lid leaning against a trash can. Slowly, he reached out and pulled the lid back.

Sitting on the ground was a bumblebee.

He was small — tiny, how old was he? — and staring up at Vector with huge, horrified eyes. He held an empty pickle jar in his hands and was pushed back against the wall, crushing his opalescent wings in his desperation to stay hidden. A thick layer of dirt and grime matted his downy fur, and his elbows and knees were bruised and scraped. One of his legs was stuck awkwardly out, blood clotted on his ankle.

After a moment of the two staring at each other, the bee bared his teeth and pounced with a shrill cry.

“Hey!” Vector yelped, recoiling yet again. He grabbed the kid midair before he could finish the attack and held him by the wings at arms length. “Where the hell did you come from?”

The bee kept kicking, swinging his tiny fists, shrieking and snarling. He was missing a tooth. He hardly looked old enough to have teeth yet, much less be losing or knocking them out already.

“Geez, kid, relax,” Vector muttered, pushing himself to his feet. “I didn’t mean to scare you, alright?”

The boy just growled and tried to bite the hand that was holding him. Vector couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Is that a bee?” Espio materialized on the doorstep, head cocked in confusion.

“Yeah, he looks like a baby,” Vector mused, nodding to the thrashing child.

“’M not a baby!” the baby screamed.

“Oh, good, he can talk. That makes things easier.”

“Why are you holding him like that?”

“He attacked me!”

Espio snorted and trotted down the steps. “Courageous, then.”

Vector tilted his head. “Where did you come from, kid? Where’s your home?”

The bee’s thrashing slowed. He glared at Vector, tears welling in his eyes. He sniffled and halfheartedly kicked his legs once more.

Vector and Espio shared a look. Vector cleared his throat.

“Y’know, my friend —”

“Colleague.”

“— Gaia, my colleague and I are detectives! If you’re lost, we can help you get home!”

The bee finally dropped his gaze now, staring at the ground. He sniffled and wiped his nose on his hand. Espio visibly cringed and recoiled as snot smeared on the kid’s fuzzy arm.

Vector finally realized that he was holding a crying child aloft by the wings. He winced. Not a good place to be gaining someone’s trust. Slowly, he lowered the kid down, letting him sit on the steps.

“Well, let’s start with you, then,” he ventured, crouching in front of him. He tried to give a disarming smile, but he knew there was very little about him that could be called ‘disarming.’ “My name is Vector, and my. . . employee here is Espio. What about you?”

The bumblebee kicked his heels against the step. “. . . Charmy.”

Espio tilted his head. “Charlie?”

“Charmy!”

“Alright,” Vector nodded, “and how old are you, Charmy?”

Charmy considered the question for a few seconds, frowning at his hand, brow furrowed in concentration. After a moment, he held up three fingers.

“This many old.”

Espio huffed and turned away. “Gaia.”

Vector felt his chest tighten at the news. A three year old, alone on the streets, digging through the trash. That wasn’t a runaway. That was something more sinister. “Alright, Charmy,” he continued, “how long have you been out here?”

Charmy titled his head, squinting suspiciously at Vector. “You put me here.”

“Well, not here here, but. . . how many nights have you slept outside?”

Charmy pursed his lips as he considered the question. He tilted his head back and squinted at the sky, as though he could chart the stars through the sickly light pollution, then looked down at his hands. His fingers flexed as he carefully held up three again, then four, five, and then finally he stretched both of his arms wide apart, as though asking for a hug or trying to carry something monumental.

“Thiiiiiis many nights!” he declared, proud at his problem solving.

Vector inhaled deeply and nodded. “How’d you end up out here, Charmy?”

“I dunno.”

“You don’t know?”

“I dunno.”

“Do you have a family? A mom or dad? Brother? Sister?”

“I dunno.”

Vector sighed and ran a hand down his face. “Okay.” At least the kid wasn’t kicking or screaming anymore. He was just looking at Vector and Espio with open curiosity. Vector sat back and rubbed his neck. He glanced the kid over once more, finally settling on that wounded leg that he’d glanced at earlier.

“Your leg looks pretty rough, huh?”

Charmy looked down and shrugged.

“Does it hurt?”

“Uh huh.”

“C’mere, let’s get that patched up.” Vector stood and offered a hand and another smile. Charmy stared at him, glanced at the door behind him, then reached up and took one of Vector’s fingers in his tiny hand. Vector felt like his heart was being squeezed. He guided Charmy up the steps and into the kitchen. Espio followed and shut the door behind them. The lock clicked decisively. Vector glanced down as he led Charmy through the agency. He was too small to properly hold Vector’s hand, so Vector had to hunch awkwardly so he didn’t lift the kid off his feet.

“How’d you hurt your leg, Charmy?”

Charmy was chewing on his thumb, looking around with fascination. He shrugged. Vector sighed and led him into the main office.

“Wanna hop up on the couch here?”

Charmy let go of his hand and attempted to scramble up, but he was too small. His wings fluttered, but they looked crumbled, and one was torn. Vector hoped that wasn’t from grabbing him. He picked Charmy up and set him gently on the couch.

“Alright, wait here, I’ll get —” Before he could finish, Espio appeared at his side, first aid kit in hand. He held it towards Vector with that usual blankly sullen look on his face. Vector blinked. “Oh. Thanks.” Espio nodded curtly and trotted out again.

Vector crouched by the couch. “Here, bud, let me see that leg?” Charmy obliged, more interested in looking at the photos and red yarn pinned up on the walls and stacks of files on the desk than arguing. Vector carefully began cleaning the wound. Charmy flinched and pulled away at the sting, but begrudgingly held still when Vector asked. It was nasty, shredded skin cutting pretty deep, and had obviously been left unattended for too long. He’d definitely need to watch for infection. It didn’t look intentional, at least, likely just a result of sharp corners and a clumsy kid on the street. But that was hard to read.

He was just dabbing a second swab in alcohol when Espio returned. He carried a plastic packet in his hands, which he popped open and passed to Charmy. Charmy took it and squinted at the contents.

“It’s dried seaweed,” Espio explained, arms crossed. “It’s food.”

Charmy slipped one of the fragile sheets from the pack. He sniffed it tentatively. It crumbled in his grip. He frowned at the crumbs falling to his lap. Espio took a sheet of his own, ripped off a corner, and popped it into his mouth.

“See?” he said, holding it towards Charmy. “It’s safe.”

Charmy took the sheet. Cautiously, he nibbled off a corner. Immediately, his face scrunched up and he gagged.

“Yucky!” he groaned, pushing the pack towards Espio. Espio rolled his eyes and sighed, but he took the pack and left the room again.

Vector chuckled. “Yeah, it’s not my favorite, either,” he confided with a secretive smile. “But Espio loves it.”

Charmy stuck out his tongue and shook his head. Vector chuckled again and picked up a bottle of antibacterial ointment.

Espio returned, this time with a granola bar. “It’s peanut butter and honey,” he said, again opening it and handing it to Charmy. He paused, though, when Charmy reached for it. “Are you allergic to peanuts?”

Charmy tilted his head. “’Lergic?” he echoed.

“. . . We’ll wait on that,” Espio muttered, turning back to leave again. Charmy whined and slumped back, kicking his good leg against the couch.

Vector spread the salve on the cut. Charmy flinched and whined again.

“Kid, please, just hold still,” Vector sighed. “This’ll keep it from getting sick, alright?” Charmy glared at him suspiciously, then the tube in his hand. “Here, you wanna see?” Vector offered, handing him the tube. “Just medicine, nothing bad.”

While Charmy was distracted by the pictures, Vector finished applying the salve and picked up the gauze.

“Were you somewhere else before you were outside, kid?” he ventured. “Somewhere with other people?”

Charmy shook his head. “Uh uh.” He stuck the tube in his mouth and chewed curiously.

“Hey, hey, no!” Vector yelped, reaching to snatch it back. Charmy dropped it and recoiled, but the gauze halfway wrapped around his leg pulled taut, the other end still in Vector’s hand. He tugged a couple times, trying to free himself, as he stared at Vector’s outstretched hand with trepidation.

Vector froze. Slowly, he picked up the salve and set it back on the floor. “I’m not gonna hurt you, kid,” he said softly. “I just want to help you, alright? You’re okay, I promise.”

Charmy stared at him uncomprehendingly. He glanced at the window, like he was planning to make a break for it, then back at the gauze that kept him tethered to the croc. Vector glanced down. He was at a loss. He didn’t want the kid to feel trapped, but he couldn’t just let him leave again. But he looked really, really nervous. He couldn’t just let go and let him run away, could he? That’d be worse than scaring him for a second. And he really wouldn’t hurt him. He knew that.

Like an answer to the silent prayer, Espio returned, holding a steaming cardboard cup in his hands.

“Instant noodles,” he said flatly, holding it towards Charmy. “Mild flavor, no common allergens, so hopefully it’s safe.”

Charmy seemed stuck for a moment between his suspicion and his hunger. Eventually, the latter seemed to win out, and he sat up slowly. He took the cup from Espio and sniffed the steam.

“I waited until it cooled down, so it’s safe for consumption,” Espio added, holding out a fork. This, Charmy ignored. He stuck his hand into the cup and grabbed a handful of noodles.

Espio cringed and stepped back. “Oh, don’t do —”

Too late. Charmy stuffed the noodles into his mouth and began chewing noisily. Espio pressed a hand over his mouth and looked away with a shudder.

“That’s so unsanitary,” he mumbled, eyes screwed shut. Vector couldn’t hide a snort at his germophobia — even if it was warranted in this case, even in Vector’s eyes.

“Hey, at least he’s eating.” He quickly finished wrapping the wound and stepped back, leaving Charmy wholly absorbed in his noodles. He wanted to take care of the more minor cuts and scrapes that littered the kid’s body, but that would probably have to wait for a moment. Charmy was too focused on eating, and the last thing Vector wanted was to risk scaring him again.

Vector shuffled back to Espio’s side, keeping his eyes on the bee. “What are you thinking?” he muttered.

Espio shook his head. He was staring at the opposite wall to avoid the mess that was taking place behind him. “Either abandoned or lost,” he mused. “We should check the police databases tomorrow for any missing person cases regarding a young bumblebee.”

“We’ll have to go pretty far back,” Vector added, crossing his arms with a frown. “Sounds like he’s been on his own for a while. He doesn’t even remember his parents or anywhere else.”

“Could just be the result of a young memory. Children have poor object permanence.”

“Sure, but kids imprint on parents. That’s not something they forget after just a day or two.”

“But how long could he have possibly survived on his own?”

“I don’t know.”

“At this age, surviving alone on the streets for however long is pretty long odds.”

Vector shrugged. “But not impossible.”

Espio picked at a loose thread on his glove. “But not good,” he muttered darkly. “If he has gone this long without anyone looking for or finding him, those are some. . . ominous implications.”

Vector couldn’t help but chuckle. “Nice one.”

“Thank you.”

He looked back to the couch. Charmy was drinking the oily broth from the cup now, but fighting wide yawns in between gulps. He tilted his head all the way back to try and lap out the last few drops, then yawned and rubbed his eyes. Vector stepped forward and took the empty cup.

“You wanna get some sleep, Charmy?” he asked.

Charmy nodded, eyes drooping.

“Alright,” Vector murmured, picking up the blanket from the back of the couch. “Lie down, you can stay here for now.” Charmy snuggled down into the cushions, sucking his thumb, and Vector tucked the blanket around him. “We’ll keep looking in the morning, alright?”

Charmy hummed sleepily and said nothing more.

Espio joined Vector at his side, frowning tersely. “Should one of us stay with him?”

Vector shrugged and pulled out the desk chair. “I’ll hang out for a while,” he decided. “You go get some rest.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. We’ll need one of us rested for this tomorrow.”

Espio nodded. “Goodnight, then.”

“Night.”

Vector got a strange sense of deja vu as Espio left again. He looked at Charmy and sighed, rubbing his brow. He was so small, smaller even than Espio had been. Abandoned. That word that Espio had used kept bouncing around in his skull. Who would have done such a thing to someone so small? Someone who didn’t even know how to count yet? Someone who didn’t know if he was allergic to peanuts, someone who was fast asleep with his thumb in his mouth and was too small to be missing teeth? A little boy who was brave enough to attack a fully-grown croc but still cowered when someone reached to help him.

Vector kept thinking about that leap, that desperate attempt to defend himself from the perceived threat. He kept thinking about how easily he’d thwarted it, just held the little boy aloft as he’d struggled and screamed.

How easily someone else could hurt him.

Vector was glad that they had found him first. He was lucky that they had found him. But he had a bad feeling that they wouldn’t be finding anything else.

He sighed and ran a hand down his snout. He watched Charmy sleep, his chest rising and falling.

“Why does this keep happening?”

Shampoo

It is foreign to me, a stranger same as you, but you are downy fluffy fuzzy nothing like the slick and stiff and scales of us and yet you bleed the same, bleed cold, all of us cold out here but the couch in the office it is warm and I know it and now you do

It is more for the bottle but you are soft and you are hurt and this smells like something sweet and gentle and I wonder how long since someone has treated you gently

Somehow you are a brighter color than I could ever be and you ask me, ‘where is this?’ and I have no answer besides ‘here and now’ or ‘the only place that’s ever been’

I hear the water and hear splashing and you emerge in a towel looking like you were always here and somehow I cannot imagine that you ever weren ’t

They went three years back in the database. Not a single unsolved case of a missing bumblebee. There weren’t many bees in Seaside City, but enough that they couldn’t just go door to door asking if they recognized Charmy. It was a huge city, after all. Vector expanded the search to a couple cities over, Espio searched for every variation of Charmy or Charlie or Charity Bee that he could think of.

Absolutely nothing.

“I don’t think that’s his real name,” Espio mumbled, head in his hands.

“Yeah, no shit,” Vector scoffed.

It was becoming grimly evident that whoever had left him behind didn’t want him returned.

But it didn’t seem to matter. Charmy didn’t seem the least bit concerned about these mysterious ‘parents’ that Vector and Espio constantly asked him about. He was more interested in drawing on the backs of closed case files and spinning from the ceiling fan and relearning how to fly, once his wings healed.

He kept bumping into the walls. Vector found him a little helmet in a discount bin. Charmy never took it off.

Money was stretched even further, every nickel, dime, and penny used to its fullest advantage. There were coupons stuck to the fridge with magnets and a jar on the windowsill for spare change that was found on the street or under couch cushions.

Vector found himself lying to the boys. He would wave his hand when one of them asked why he wasn’t eating and make some vague allusion to eating earlier, ‘while I was out.’ Charmy believed it every time. Espio started lying right back. ‘I don’t even like this flavor of ramen. You can have it.’

They took turns lying to Charmy. Charmy never had to lie. He started gaining some weight and fluff and color back. He talked louder. His wings hummed when he got excited.

A second bed was tucked into the larger bedroom. It was now Charmy and Espio’s room. That was fine, too.

Charmy liked music, too. He liked bubbly pop and hip-hop with engaging beats and anything he could dance to. He liked to lie on the floor and color while the records spun. He talked a lot more, as he grew to trust them more.

He asked a lot of questions.

“Vector?” he asked one night.

Vector grunted.

“How come you’re bigger than me?”

“’Cuz I’m older.”

“Espio’s older, too, and he’s itty bitty.”

Vector snorted. Espio glared at the both of them over the top of the dictionary he was hunting through. “I’m still larger than you,” he muttered.

“But you’re smaller than Vector!”

“I’m a chameleon, he’s a crocodile. Crocodiles are naturally larger than both chameleons and bumblebees.”

“Ooooh.” A pause, interrupted only by the sound of crayons on paper. “Why?”

Espio sighed. “I don’t know, it just is.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“I know plenty!”

“Alright, then,” Charmy challenged, sitting up and planting his hands on his hips. “How come you’re purple, but Vector’s green, and I’m shripped?”

“Striped.”

“That’s what I said!”

“Anyways, I’m a chameleon,” Espio continued authoritatively. “I’m typically purple simply because that’s most comfortable for me. I could be any color I wanted.”

Charmy’s eyes widened. “Any color?”

Espio nodded.

“Can you be green like Vector?”

Espio glanced at Vector, set the dictionary down, and turned a vibrant green, exactly the same shade as Vector’s outer scales. After a moment, he shifted again, this time adding a stripe of gold around his throat to mimic the chain he always wore.

Vector tossed his head back and laughed. “It’s a good look, kid!” he chuckled.

“Oh!” Charmy gasped, buzzing up to grab Espio’s face. “Do me, do me!”

Espio grimaced and recoiled from his sticky hands, shifting back to his normal magenta. “I’m not some circus animal,” he huffed.

“Please?” Charmy begged, clasping his hands together and letting his eyes grow wide and pitiful. “Pretty please?”

Espio scowled a looked away.

After a moment, he shifted again, brown and yellow stripes.

Charmy shrieked with glee. Vector smiled proudly. And, if he wasn’t imagining things, Espio smiled, too.

Chapter Text

Charmy didn’t remember anything before Vector and Espio. Not really. He remembered cold and dirty stuff — really dirty, not dirty like mud puddles in the park, dirty like smelly and grimy and gritty and gross — and he remembered hurting his leg on a broken bit of chain link fence — he still had the scar. But he didn’t remember any people, he didn’t remember any home, he didn’t remember anything before a ratty couch and warm noodles being eaten by the slippery fistful.

There was something at the back of his head. Something like a dam, like a house of brittle twigs. He felt like if he pushed against it enough, the memories would all woosh right back like a gust of wind while he was flying, or like Vector when he’d gotten them a good case. But it wouldn’t be fun like wind or like Vector. So he didn’t push. He just left it there.

There were a few scars on his arms, places were his downy fluff grew shorter and coarser, that the others had never noticed. He really hated the smell of cigarettes. That was as far as he was willing to push.

Charmy really liked Vector and Espio. Espio was mean sometimes, and he always seemed to be in a bad mood, but he read aloud sometimes if Charmy begged him, sometimes the cool books they got at the library, or whatever snoozefest he himself was reading, but it was still nice. Vector was way more fun. He was always leading them on the coolest adventures — even if sometimes Espio and Charmy had to wait at home while he did ‘dangerous stuff.’ He was big and loud, but not loud in a scary way, loud in a fun way.

Charmy thought there were people who were loud in a not fun way, whose loud was dangerous and scary and mean. That felt like it was somewhere behind the wall, though. So Charmy satisfied himself with Vector and his fun, noisy, exciting loud instead.

And he had good music taste. He told Charmy that a lot of people didn’t have good music taste.

Charmy was happy. There was nothing more he could want. Vector was teaching him to read, Espio was teaching him math, and he got to come out to help with their cases sometimes. Charmy loved the Chaotix Detective Agency and the weird home that had grown above it.

He did not need to know about before. He did not want to.

But he had. . . dreams, sometimes.

He never remembered them when he woke. Maybe they weren’t even dreams as much as a jolt of fear, a sudden conviction that he was alone, and he needed to wake up and find safety immediately.

So he did. He would jolt awake and sit up and look around and stare at Espio’s sleeping form for a while, then he might tiptoe to Vector’s room to make sure he was still there. Sometimes he climbed onto the huge bed and tucked himself under Vector’s arm and fell asleep like that. Then Charmy would wake up to Vector gone and the blankets tucked around him and the smell of that coffee stuff that he wasn’t allowed to drink from the kitchen downstairs.

But it was storming, one night when he awoke. It had been a few months now, and Charmy had seen plenty of storms at the Chaotix Detective Agency. He didn’t usually mind storms — he wasn’t a baby, after all. Espio liked to sit and watch the lightning. That was actually kind of fun, especially when he taught him how to count the thunder and lightning and space between them. But rain made the ceiling leak, and the sound of that drip-drip-drip into the buckets in the hallway was pretty creepy. Charmy had helped Vector find the leaks and set the buckets out — another fun thing about storms — but he didn’t want to sneak all way down that dark drippy cave to Vector’s room. So when he awoke that night, with the thunder howling like the mean-loud and lightning flashing like cigarette lighters and the buckets collecting that drip-drip-drip like footsteps outside the door, he didn’t know what to do. He just sat up and hugged his knees to his chest and watched Espio, watched his chest slowly rise and fall, and tried to make that enough.

But it wasn’t.

He kept his eyes screwed shut against the lightning, the thunder made him jump or flinch every time, and every drip sounded louder, closer. He kept waiting for someone to knock their door down and do something mean to him or to Espio.

Not Vector, he reminded himself, squeezing his eyes shut. Vector wouldn’t do something mean to us.

He wasn’t sure who would, then. Who he was so afraid of.

The wall at the back of his mind buckled slightly. But it didn’t give. It bounced right back up when Charmy looked away again.

Nobody could do anything mean to Espio. He was way too strong and cool for that. He’d mess up anyone who tried to mess with him. Maybe he’d even protect Charmy. Maybe not, but. . . maybe.

Either way, the storm was getting worse.

Charmy slipped from his bed, crept across the room, and clambered up into Espio’s.

In an instant, a kunai was at his throat.

Charmy shrieked and fell back to the floor with a thud.

“Gaia,” Espio huffed, letting the kunai fall against the mattress. “What are you doing?”

“You almost killed me!” Charmy whisper-yelled, rubbing his throat where he’d felt the tip grazing him.

“I did not, I’ve trained my reflexes perfectly! You’re fine!”

“Do you just sleep with that?!”

“Well —” Espio tucked the blade under his pillow and sat back on his elbows, rubbing his eyes. “Don’t tell Vector.”

“Don’t tell me what to do! You almost stabbed me!”

“What were you doing?” Espio hissed.

“I just —” Charmy pushed himself to his feet. “I’m — I’m scared, okay?”

Espio rolled his eyes and flopped back. “Honestly, Charmy,” he huffed. “There’s nothing in here to be afraid of.”

Charmy shook his head. “I’m scared of — of something else.”

“Well, now you know I have a weapon, so that should help.”

“Why would that help?!”

“I mean — I can defend us against anything that tries to break in!”

“I’m just scared you’ll try to stab me again!”

“I wasn’t trying to stab you!”

“I just don’t want to be alone right now!” Charmy snapped, stamping his foot for emphasis.

“Shhh!” Espio hissed, glancing at the door.

Charmy lowered his voice again. “I’m just. . . scared of the storm, okay?” He glared at the floor, antennae drooping, as he felt tears brimming in his eyes. “Okay? That’s what I’m scared of.” He shuffled his feet. “I just don’t want to be alone.”

He kicked one of his crayons that sat on the floor, just too close to Espio’s side of the room, watching it roll away to avoid eye contact with the grumpy ninja. He was about ready to resign himself to a sleepless night in his own bed when he heard Espio sigh.

“Gaia,” he groaned again, shuffling so that he was pressed against the wall. “Don’t expect a habit of this,” he added as he lifted the covers.

Charmy lit up, his wings buzzing gleefully behind him, and he shot forward, scrambling up into the bed. “Thanks, Espio!” he whispered.

Espio just grunted and tucked the blanket around him. “No more talking,” he mumbled, burying his face in his pillow. “I’m tired.”

“Okay,” Charmy whispered. He snuggled closer to Espio, tucking his head under his chin. Espio just sighed and let it happen. “G’night.”

After a moment, Espio wrapped his arm around Charmy, hugging him closer. “Goodnight.”

Charmy listened intently to the rhythm of his heartbeat, the sound of his steady breathing. If even Espio wanted him around, he’d never be alone.

Charmy tucked his hand innocently under the pillow.

“Don’t touch the kunai.”

He scowled, but pulled his hand out and sucked on his thumb instead.

Typhoon

Crashing and lashing cruel brutal unusual perusal like breaking plates and fitful fathers crashing into walls and down stone roads, ‘Had them back home,’ he told me, ‘Swamps and marshes and storms like revelation.’ Marshes older than time, older than bones, older than the creatures they swallow, water water sinking swallow weep and seep sallow wallow drown in its eternity

I like to count the raindrops and watch the world flash in and out, once second drowning and burning the next how mundane how hubristic how naive green unseen I am so small and think I can count eternity in the gutter

Collecting in the hallway, oh there is eons in a bucket that is cast away next day, down the tub out the window c rassh into the street like a mockery of what made it

There is something soft in my arms and he cries that he is afraid and I think it is only lightning, only water and fire and life and death and dark dark and water deep down drown drink and sink but he is soft and he cries that he is afraid like a crack in my ribs so I hide my sharp edges and tell him ‘I can protect us’

Charmy pushed his spoon through the cereal. It made a ripple, a tidal wave, a tsunami of sugary milk spill over the side. He did it again. He imagined the bits of cornflakes were tiny people, swept away from a big storm, crashed from a silverware pirate ship in a tempest of orange juice and coffee.

“Man overboard!” he wailed, stirring the spoon more aggressively. “Argh, the sirens! Mermaids! They be drownin’ us!”

He’d learned about mermaids pretty recently, after asking about a toy he saw in a market stand. Vector told him about the more broad interpretation, ‘Bottom half’s a fish and the top half is somethin’ else. They’re not real. They’re supposed to live underwater in, like, seashell castles or somethin’.’ Espio had told him the myths of sirens and merfolk drowning sailors lost at sea. Charmy thought that idea was more fun.

“Ach, land! We’re saved! Oh noooo, it’s just a giant shark!” He picked up a piece of toast and plunged it into the bowl. Sticky, sweetened milk splashed over his arms and onto the table as the toast-shark wrecked carnage among the stranded cornflakes. “Nooooo! Waaagh, blaaaagh, burrgg. . .”

“Charmy, quit playin’ with your food and just eat it,” Vector grunted, trudging into the kitchen with his coffee mug. “That stuff don’t grow on trees, y’know.”

“Yes it does!” Charmy said, pointing to the jug of orange juice that on the table. It showed a picture of an orange growing on a lush tree. “The oranges do!”

“Well the toast and cornflakes don’t.”

“They don’t?” Charmy stood on his chair and reached for the cereal box, just to see if there were any tree pictures on the side that they’d missed. His sticky fingers fumbled the box, and he watched it fall to the ground, spilling cornflakes everywhere.

Vector sighed and pinched his brow.

“Whoops.” Charmy leaned over the table and put on his pirate voice again. “Argh, we done sailed over the edge of the world, lads!”

Vector chuckled and shook his head. “Geez, kid, just eat,” he snorted, pushing himself up from the table. “We’ve got a busy day today.”

“Really?” Charmy sat back and watched him return with the broom. “Do we have a case?” It had been weeks since their last one.

“Well, no,” Vector admitted, “but it’s Espio’s birthday today, and I finally managed to get him out for the day. I’ve still got a little bit saved up, so we’re going to get things ready!”

“Ready for what?”

“For his birthday.”

“What’s a birthday?”

Vector looked up in surprise. “Do you. . .?” He sighed and shook his head. “No, of course not. Why would you?” He said the last bit to himself, but he seemed disappointed. Charmy hoped it wasn’t his fault. He shrank back and looked worriedly at the cereal that Vector was still sweeping up.

“Birthdays are the day that people are born,” Vector explained.

“What’s ‘born’?”

“Like. . . when they. . . first start to exist, I guess?”

“What’s ‘exist’?”

“Live. Birthdays are when people start to be alive.”

“Was he not alive before? I talked to him yesterday!”

“No, I mean — Like, this day, thirteen years ago, he started being alive. That’s what a birthday is.”

“This day?”

“Yeah.”

“Thursday?”

“. . . Yeah. Yeah, Thursday.”

“But there was a Thursday last week. That wasn’t his birthday.”

Vector tapped the sheets of paper that hung on the wall, that thing where the top half was a picture of fancy old cars and the bottom was a checkerboard with big stickers that said RENT DUE and WATER BILL. “This Thursday is October ninth, though. That’s the special thing about today, not Thursday. Espio’s birthday is October ninth.”

“Ooooooh.” Charmy nodded sagely. He still didn’t know what was going on. “Do you have a birthday?”

“Yep, June twenty-second.”

“What about me?”

“You definitely do, yeah.”

“When is it?”

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t know.”

“Oh.”

“But we can make up a birthday,” Vector offered, flipping absentmindedly through the wall-checkerboard. “Maybe we can say that you’re birthday’s the day you. . . uh, started staying with us.”

Charmy figured that was as good a day as any. He didn’t remember much before it anyways, so maybe that was the day he started being alive. “When’s that?”

“May fourteenth.”

“Okay. May Fourteenth is okay.”

Vector chuckled. “Okay, good.” He dumped the cereal from the dustpan into the garbage and set the broom back in its corner. He dusted off his hands. “You going to eat any more?”

Charmy looked down at his bowl of soggy toast-shark and drowned pirates. “Uh uh.” The sailors were doomed to their fates. Win for the mermaids.

“Alright, go wash your face and we’ll head out.”

“Where?”

The answer turned out to be the thrift store. Charmy knew the place well, Miss Lily’s Secondhand and Donation Center. The three of them frequented it whenever they needed new clothes or kitchen towels or dishes. Their cabinets were full of mismatched plates and mugs and glasses with all different patterns and decals, all from the shelves of Miss Lily’s. Usually Espio was here, though, to do the math and budget the money. It felt a little weird going without him.

“Alright,” Vector said, flipping through a few bills as he leaned against the wall outside. “We’ve got ten dollars for Espio’s present.”

“Present?” Charmy echoed, head cocked.

“Yeah, you give people presents on their birthday.”

“Will you give me presents on May fourteenth?”

“Probably.” He folded the cash again. “So, we can get him one thing for ten dollars, or we can each take half and get him something ourselves.” He raised an eyebrow at Charmy. “What’s half of ten?”

“Um. . .” Charmy had to think for a long moment. “Five?”

“Yeah!” Vector ruffled Charmy’s hair with a toothy grin. “That’s my boy!”

Charmy felt his face flushing as he returned the grin.

“So, whaddya wanna do? One with ten or two with five?”

“I want five.”

“Alright.” Vector handed him a five dollar bill, then pushed off the wall. “C’mon, let’s case the joint.”

“Isn’t that a thing bad guys do?”

“Bad joke.” He held the door open so Charmy could buzz through without having to awkwardly open the door from midair.

The store was familiar — messy, slightly damp-smelling, with boring old-people music drifting from the speaker at the front. Vector beelined for the back, to the bookshelves that overflowed with everything from cookbooks to dime-store romance novels.

“I’ve got something specific in mind,” he informed Charmy as he browsed the shelves.

“What’s that?” Charmy chirped, pulling down a picture book with a dragonfly on the cover.

“A thesaurus.”

Charmy flipped the book open. “Is that a dinosaur?”

Vector chuckled. “No, it’s a book that has a bunch of different words in it.”

Charmy looked up, nose crinkled in distaste. “Vector, all grownup books have words in them.”

Vector snorted and rolled his eyes, giving Charmy a playful push. “This one has words and what they mean, then other words that mean the same thing.”

“Boring.”

“Anyways, not all books have words in them.”

“Whaddya mean?”

Vector picked up one book from the far end of the shelf, thick and heavy with a purple plastic cover. “This is called a journal,” he explained, handing it to Charmy. “It’s blank, so someone can write what they want to in there.”

Charmy Oooo’d as he flipped through the blank pages. “Like Espio does with the cases.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

He held it up. “How much is this?”

Vector glanced at the sticker on the back. “Four-fifty.”

“Which is. . . less than five?”

“It is less than five!”

Charmy grinned proudly. “Can I get this for Espio?”

Vector returned the smile. “I think he’ll love that.” He resurfaced from his hunt a few minutes later, battered thesaurus in hand. After they paid (and Charmy learned that five dollars minus four-fifty was fifty cents), they walked down the street to the really nice sweet shop to pick up some mochi for Espio. Vector said the green stuff, matcha, was his favorite, so they got one of those. Charmy begged him for something sweet too, so Vector finally caved and got him a fudge pop from the corner store. Not nearly as fancy, but Charmy didn’t want the fancy stuff anyways. He wanted his fudge pop.

He and Vector sat on a bench by the wharf as he ate it, licking the rapidly-melting chocolate off the stick as it rolled down his hands and arms.

“Hey, Vector?”

Vector was paying more attention to the grey, turbulent waves and the ships pulling into the harbor. But he grunted in acknowledgment.

“What was Espio doing before his birthday?”

Vector looked down. “What do you mean?”

“You said his birthday’s the day he started being alive,” Charmy reminded him. He licked some chocolate from his arm. “So, what was he doing before he was alive?”

“Ah. . .” Vector cringed and shrugged. “I mean. . . I don’t know. That’s just the day he hatched. He was in an egg before that, I guess.”

“But where did the egg come from?”

Vector groaned and ran a hand down his snout. He was quiet for a long moment, as though weighing options that Charmy didn’t understand. “Well. . .” Vector tilted his head. “Y’know how most kids your age have got parents? Usually a mom and a dad, right?”

“Sometimes.” Charmy chewed on his popsicle stick. “Koko down the street’s got two moms and a dad but she doesn’t see him because, um, she said her mama said he doesn’t do his, um, child support.”

“That —” Vector snorted. “Geez — yeah, sometimes it’s different, but the one mom and one dad is how eggs and babies get made.”

“They make the egg?”

“Yep.”

“How?”

“Don’t worry about it — so everyone comes from their parents. That’s the answer.”

It wasn’t really. Charmy still didn’t know exactly where Espio — or anyone — was before becoming alive. But now another issue was burning at his mind. He couldn’t even cool it with the fudge pop.

“Do I have parents?”

Vector hesitated for a long moment, eyes fixed on a shipping barge far out at sea. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Somewhere.”

“Where?”

“We don’t know,” he shrugged. “We, uh, we looked, when we found you, but we couldn’t find anything.” He hesitantly looked down at Charmy. “Do you. . .? We could keep looking, if you want to find them.”

Charmy frowned thoughtfully. He looked down at his hands. He looked at the chocolate plastering his fur down.

He shook his head. “No.”

Vector nodded. “Alright.” He looked back at the sea.

Charmy kicked his feet, staring at his scuffed-up secondhand shoes. “Why do you think they aren’t here?” he asked quietly.

Vector sighed. “I — I really don’t know, buddy.” He rested a hand on Charmy’s back. He could almost cover his whole body. Charmy nearly buckled under the weight, but it was comforting.

A little.

He thought of the spilled cereal that morning. He thought of the mess he’d made at the breakfast table. He looked down at the chocolate, drying into a sticky mass all over him.

“Do you think they didn’t want me?” he whispered.

Vector tugged him against his side, a hug that Charmy could completely disappear into. “I know I do,” he replied firmly.

Charmy looked up with a smile. “You do?”

“I do.” He ruffled Charmy’s hair, making him giggle. “Espio and I both.” They sat for a few more minutes, watching a sailboat pass by, before they stood and left. Vector cleaned Charmy up as best he could with some paper towels in the corner store bathroom before they began the long trek home. he showed Charmy how to wrap the books in old newspaper and explained that birthdays were just to tell someone you loved or appreciated them, ‘Thanks for spending this past year in my life.’ That was a pretty nice thought.

It was mid afternoon by the time the door finally swung open and Espio trotted in, carrying an envelope.

“I apologize for my delay,” he greeted, dropping the envelope onto the desk. “The client was hesitant to pay, given that they were unsatisfied with our conclusion, but relented with. . . a reminder of his contract.” Espio picked absentmindedly at his wrist cuff.

“No worries, kid,” Vector said, waving the envelope aside. “Thanks for taking care of that.”

“Is there anything else you require of me before we begin preparing dinner?” By which he meant, ‘Preheating the oven for frozen pizza.’

“Just these,” Vector replied proudly, presenting his package with a toothy grin. “Happy birthday!”

Charmy dropped his own gift onto the desk right before Espio, circling above him giddily. “Happy birthday!” he sang.

Espio stared at the two gifts. His eyes were wide and strangely blank, looking at the packages like they were large bugs or a weird painting that he couldn’t decipher. Slowly, he looked up at Vector. “How does this work?” he asked.

Vector’s brow furrowed. “Work?”

“Do you unwrap them? Are they unknown to you, as well? Or — what’s the procedure for this?”

“Have you. . . never had birthday gifts before?”

Espio dropped his gaze and kicked at a loose thread on the carpet. “I forgot that was today,” he mumbled.

“How old are you?” Charmy asked, plopping on the edge of the desk and kicking his feet.

“Thirteen, now.”

He gasped. “That’s so many!”

“It’s not —”

Vector shook his head, then leaned over the desk to press the package into his hands. “Unwrap it, kid,” he directed. “I know what it is. I picked it out. It’s your birthday, you’re supposed to be surprised by it.”

Espio held the package gingerly. “What. . . sort of surprise?”

“A good one. Hopefully.”

Espio slowly peeled off the old newspaper they’d been using as wrapping. He crumpled it in his hand as he read the cover of the book, his brow furrowed. Then his eyes widened as he inhaled sharply and the paper fell from his hand to the floor.

“Is —” He stuttered for a moment. “This is —”

“It’s secondhand,” Vector added apologetically. “Not super up to date, but, uh, I figured you’d still find some use for it.”

“Is that the dinosaur book?” Charmy asked, leaning eagerly forward. “The one with all the words?”

“It’s a thesaurus,” Espio whispered in awe. He thumbed through the pages as though he were holding sacred texts.

“Yeah, the dinosaur word book! With all the words!” He pushed his present closer. “And this one’s got no words!”

“Charmy, you’re not supposed to tell him,” Vector said with a lighthearted laugh.

“Oh, whoops.”

“No words?” Espio echoed, picking up Charmy’s gift. He seemed loathe to put down the weird thesaurus book, but he was quicker to unwrap Charmy’s and reveal the thick purple notebook, all blank pages and possibility.

“For all your poems,” Charmy explained brightly. His wings buzzed louder. “Do you like it?”

Espio stood there, eyes wide, totally speechless between the book that held every word he could imagine and the one that he could fill with anything he could imagine. He didn’t speak for a long while, long enough that Charmy and Vector were starting to give each other worried looks.

Then Espio cleared his throat and wiped his eyes.

“I deeply appreciate this gesture,” he said. His voice was oddly hoarse. “Thank you for your generosity. I will put both of these gifts to good use, I assure you.”

Vector smiled hopefully. “So. . . you like them?”

Espio pressed his mouth shut and nodded, just once. His eyes were oddly shiny. But Charmy wasn’t worried about that. They were having pizza tonight — good pizza, not the frozen kind, the kind that the guy brought right to their house! Even though Espio got to pick the pizza toppings and the movie, which felt a little unfair, it was still good.

Charmy snuggled against Vector’s side on the couch, eyes drooping as the old cartoon movie played out on the TV.

Espio’s tail curled around his arm. It was the closest he’d come to a hug from him. Charmy was learning to appreciate that.

Charmy loved the Chaotix Detective Agency. He felt completely safe there. The walls were becoming papered with his drawings — he had many of the three of them. He liked drawing Vector way bigger than him and Espio, holding them up on his shoulders or with his arms wrapped around them. He liked drawing Espio in different colors. Sometimes, if Charmy asked really nicely and Espio was in a really good mood, he’d let Charmy hand him random crayons and change color to match them. It always made Charmy giggle and shriek with joy.

Vector acted like every new drawing he handed him was a masterpiece. Charmy tried to draw extra good ones when they were stressed out. He’d waddle up to Vector as he sat hunched over the desk, staring at a case file with dark, red-rimmed eyes, and stand on tiptoe to slid a drawing across the desk, facedown, like he saw Espio do with ‘sensitive information.’

“What’s this?” Vector mumbled distractedly, flipping the paper over.

“I drawed it!” Charmy announced proudly. He buzzed up to Vector’s shoulder and pointed to the figures. “See, that’s you, and that’s Espio — I drawed him rainbow, ‘cuz I couldn’t pick one — and then that’s me and I’m flyin’ and carryin’ you guys while you’re fightin’ bad guys!”

“Yeah, look at that!” Vector nodded appreciatively. “Yeah, this is nice, isn’t it? Very nice!”

Charmy buzzed proudly. Vector fished around in the drawer for a couple tacks and helped him choose where to pin it up.

So, yes, Charmy felt totally safe here.

Even as he was being handed a very sharp, very heavy weapon.

“This is called a kunai,” Espio informed him as they sat across from each other, cross-legged on the kitchen floor. He balanced the weapon between his hands, allowing Charmy to see the whole thing. “It’s dangerous, yes, but it’s important that you learn to respect it before you can use it, understand?”

Charmy nodded, eyes wide with awe.

“Alright, so what you do it hold it backhanded, like this —” He pressed the handle carefully into Charmy’s hand. Charmy felt he would explode with glee. “Keep your wrist straight to avoid nicking your arm — yes, good —”

“Hey, hey!” Vector’s voice rang from the main office, interrupting the lesson. His footsteps lumbered closer. “I better not walk in there to see you handing a four-year-old a deadly sharp object!”

Espio looked up, bewildered. “Why not?” he cried.

Vector appeared in the doorway. He moved forward so quickly that Charmy didn’t see him snatch up the weapon until it was in his hand.

“That’s mine!” Espio yelped, jumping to his feet.

“He’s four,” Vector drawled, frowning severely for some reason that Charmy didn’t get. He just wanted to hold Espio’s cool stuff. “He doesn’t need to be tossing around knives.”

“It’s a kunai,” Espio repeated sharply. “Anyway, I wasn’t going to teach him how to throw it or fight with it or something. I just want to show him how to hold it so he doesn’t try to do it incorrectly and injure himself that way!”

“It’s too dangerous,” Vector insisted firmly in his I’m-still-your-boss voice.

“He should learn to respect and handle weaponry that he encounters in everyday life,” Espio replied coldly, glaring right back up at him. “I started learning at his age.”

“Yeah,” Vector rolled his eyes, “well, I’m starting to think you were raised in a cult.”

Espio bristled. “It wasn’t a cult.”

Vector shrugged. “Then what was it?” The question was flat, open, calm. Challenging, almost, in its monotony.

Espio said nothing. His lips were pressed tightly together. He looked away, scowling, and thumped one clenched fist against his thigh. He exhaled heavily.

Charmy glanced between him and Vector and the kunai in his hand. He still really wanted to hold it.

The tension in the room was shattered by the sound of the phone ringing. Espio shook his head and stepped forward.

“I’ve got it,” he mumbled.

Vector sighed. That now-familiar exasperated look plagued his face again. But Charmy saw something else he didn’t fully recognize yet in it, something like sorrow or concern.

“Y’know,” he said as Espio sidestepped him, “you’re gonna have to tell me eventually.”

Espio froze, just for half a second, then doubled back to Vector, shoulders tense, fists clenched, eyes blazing as he stood on tiptoe to get as threatening as he could to the massive croc. He flashed a bright red, like a poisonous frog or a siren.

“I don’t have to do anything!” he spat. Then he turned on his heel and stalked out, shaking his hand like he wanted to flick off something unpleasant. A second later, Charmy heard the clatter of a telephone being answered far too aggressively, and Espio’s voice snap, “Chaotix Detective Agency.”

Vector rubbed his brow and sighed before turning to crouch in front of Charmy. “This is very dangerous,” he warned, holding up the kunai. “You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” Charmy tilted his head. “That’s what Espio was tellin’ me.”

“Then you know not to ever touch it, right? Because you could get hurt?”

“But he was gonna tell me how to touch it so I don’t get hurt! That’s what he said!”

Vector paused. He shook his head. “Still, it’s — it’s dangerous, alright?”

Charmy frowned at the blade. He looked up at Vector. “What’s a cult?”

Vector winced. “It’s. . .” He pushed himself to his feet and busied himself with some old mail on the counter. “It’s a dangerous place run by bad people, who trick people into doing bad things.”

“Is that where Espio’s from?”

Vector shrugged. “I don’t know,” he sighed. “I don’t know what his deal is.”

“Am I from a cult?”

“I dunno where you’re from, Bitty Bee.”

“Huh.”

Espio reappeared in the doorway, arms crossed, leaning on the frame. “They want to talk to the head detective,” he said flatly. He seemed to be silently wrestling with himself, trying to get his scales back to his usual purple color, but they were shifting between a deep red and a disgruntled orange.

Vector opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, hesitated, then nodded and trotted to the door. Espio held out a hand as he passed, eyes piercing. Vector rolled his eyes, but handed back the kunai before passing into the office.

Espio watched him go, craning his neck around the doorframe to ensure that he sat at the desk and picked up the corded telephone. Vector began his whole pitch to the person on the other end of the line, the practiced speech as familiar as the sound of traffic just outside. Slowly, Espio shuffled back to Charmy and crouched in front of him.

“You want to hold it backhanded,” Espio continued in a low voice, “and keep your grip very firm on the leather wrapping of the handle, see? You hold the blade away from your body —”

“One moment, sir,” Vector said cheerfully, then, bellowing, “I can still hear you in here! Enough of that thing!”

Charmy squeaked and pressed his hands over his mouth to stifle his guilty giggling. Espio, though, had other plans. He stashed his kunai, grabbed Charmy’s arm, and pulled him to follow as they dashed through the office — Vector’s attempts to stop them were thwarted by the very limited range that the telephone cord offered him — and up the stairs to their bedroom. Charmy was squealing and laughing the whole way, and Espio gave him a conspiratorial grin as he shut the door behind them.

“Want to see how to hold a shuriken?”

“Yes!”

Chapter Text

Espio was standing in the doorway with the logbook and look on his face like he was waiting for a teetering glass to fall and break.

“We have to make a choice,” he said flatly, tapping the logbook.

Vector leaned back with a frown. “Between what and what?”

Espio sat down in the chair before his desk and set the logbook in front of him. “Rent or food.”

Vector sighed and pinched his brow. Every worst scenario, realized. He’d had a feeling it would come down to this eventually. They’d been short on cases for a while, barely managing to pay the water bill with the last of the change jar. Their food was running far too low. They were down to half a jug of milk, three granola bars, a honeystick, and two slices of pizza. The heating had already been pushed back too long. It was getting pretty cold, and if their heat was cut, they’d risk unplanned brumation for all three of them, which could prove disastrous.

But it would be worse if they were on the street.

Vector crossed his arms. “Rent,” he decided. “Heating’s our next priority.”

Espio frowned. “I’d rather be cold than hungry, personally.”

“There’s other places to get food,” Vector said with a wave of his hand.

“I’m not going dumpster diving, either.”

“I’m not — I meant food banks!”

Espio’s jaw dropped. “Food banks?” he echoed incredulously. “We can’t go to a food bank!”

Vector gave him a warning look. “You’re no better than anybody else, Es. Watch it.”

“I just mean — I mean, other people really need that,” he stuttered, fruitlessly attempting to explain away his mortification. “We can’t take from the people who rely on it.”

“Hate to break it to ya, kid,” Vector said as he took the logbook and flipped it open to reveal line after line of red ink, “but right now, we’re relying on it.”

Espio scowled at the logbook. He shook his hand, as though trying to flick away something slimy, and stood, stalking to the stairs. Vector just let him go.

Not like they had a case to work on, anyways.

Vector tried to pick a time that wouldn’t be too busy. But it was hard to predict. He left with Charmy around nine in the morning. Espio stayed behind. This irritated Vector — who was he worried about seeing him? It wasn’t like he had any friends — but he let him. He remembered being fourteen. Everything bad felt like the end of the world. If the kid wanted to sulk in his room, so be it. Besides, maybe having someone at home was a good idea, just in case somebody called or arrived with a case.

The food bank wasn’t too far. They lived in a pretty rough area, after all, so it got the most use just a few blocks from the agency. Charmy buzzed around Vector’s head as they walked.

“So these people will just give us food if we ask?” he asked incredulously.

“That’s the hope,” Vector sighed. “Never actually been to one of these before. But, yeah, that’s the idea, food for people who can’t afford to buy it.”

“Where does it come from?”

“Donations, I guess. People who have more than they need give it to people who have less.”

“Why doesn’t everything work like that?”

Vector rubbed his eyes. It was too early to explain economics to a five year old. “I dunno, kid.”

“But why don’t we go here all the time?” Charmy cried. “Then we’d never need to spend money on food ever again!”

“Well. . .” Vector leaned against a light pole and watched the pedestrian light flicker red across the street. “We can usually afford food,” he explained. “It’s a bit tight, sometimes, but we can do it. And since this free food is such a limited thing — there’s not always enough to go around — it’s better to leave it for people who really need it, who can’t afford anything at all, see?”

Charmy’s wings hummed along with him. “I guess.”

“Good.” The light changed to the green walking indicator, and Vector stepped off the curb with a couple other folks. “C’mon, it’s not far now.”

It was a nondescript building. The only indication of its function was a picture of a fork and knife above the door and a decal on the glass. Vector pushed it open and stepped into the lobby, nodding for Charmy to follow him. He stepped aside and held the door for a young chinchilla, who mumbled, ‘Thanks,’ and scurried out without looking at him. Vector wished there wasn’t so much shame tied to this — it was a necessary service, sometimes folks were just down on their luck — but he’d fallen victim to it too, carefully deciding which time would be least likely for someone to see him walking in.

In a perfect world, maybe everything would work like Charmy suggested. But it wasn’t. Everything was tied up in everything else, and people felt deeply embarrassed for trying to feed their kids.

Vector included. But he’d be damned before he let Charmy and Espio go hungry.

There were two counters. On the left was a sheep who was sorting through some papers and bags of rice. On the right was a rabbit reading a book, which she set down as Vector walked in.

“I can help you over here!” she offered with a smile.

Vector gave her a terse nod as he approached. “Hey.”

“Hello!” she greeted brightly. The paper nametag stuck to her blouse read, Vanilla — Volunteer — Happy to Help! “Could I have your name, sir?”

“Uh, Vector,” he said.

“Any second name?”

“Nope, just Vector the crocodile.”

“Excellent, thank you.” The rabbit scribbled something down on a sheet of paperwork, then smiled up at Charmy. “And what’s your name?” she cooed.

“I’m Charmy Bee!” he announced, puffing up his chest like one of those superheros in the cartoons he watched.

“Wonderful to meet you both. I’m Vanilla.”

“Yeah.” Vector cleared his throat when she tilted her head, perplexed by his response. “Sorry, I mean — yeah, I saw your nametag. Sorry. Hello.”

“Oh, this thing,” she laughed, pressing her hand over it. “Goodness, I always forget I’m wearing it.”

“Well, we noticed!” Charmy declared proudly, landing on Vector’s shoulder. “We’re detectives!”

Vanilla raised her eyebrows. “My, how interesting!”

Vector cleared his throat and waved a hand. “Yeah, it’s not all that exciting.”

“Still, I always love a good mystery.”

Vector felt his face flush a little at that.

Vanilla folded her hands on the counter. “So, how can I help you today?”

Vector shuffled his feet. “I’ve never actually been here before,” he admitted. “I’m, uh, not super sure how this works.”

“Oh, it’s no problem,” Vanilla assured him. “You just let me know how many people you’re collecting for, any allergens or preferred food, and then I’ll get some for you. We’ll go over it together and make sure everything’s acceptable.”

“Do I need to fill out any paperwork or anything?”

“No, I just need to log what I give you for inventory.”

“Makes sense.” Vector cleared his throat again. Why was he so nervous? Why was this rabbit only making him more so? “Well, there’s three of us. Me ‘n this little terror,” he nodded at Charmy on his shoulder, “and there’s a teenager at home.”

Vanilla nodded, writing something on a sheet of scrap paper. “Any allergies?”

“The teenager’s allergic to shellfish,” he replied. “And I think this little guy might be allergic to strawberries, but it’s pretty mild, he just gets a sore throat when he eats them.”

“I’m not ‘lergic to nothin’!” Charmy protested.

“Well, you might be,” Vector reminded him in irritation, “and I’m not willing to test that limit right now.”

“Anything specific you’d like?” Vanilla asked.

“Ice cream!” Charmy piped up.

Vector ignored him. “Canned soup is a good fallback for us,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Um, granola bars, pasta — just some stuff that’s quick and easy to make up, if you can. It’s cool if there’s not, though, y’know, it’s — it’s fine. Maybe some cereal, if you’ve got any?”

Vanilla nodded and picked up the scrap paper with the notes. “Let me go see what I can get for you.” She trotted through a door behind her. Vector caught a glimpse of a room lined with rows of shelves before the door closed. He sighed quietly and glanced around. Now that there was nobody new to show off for, Charmy was occupying himself by looking at the posters of smiling kids on the wall. The sheep at the other counter was doodling on a notepad.

Vector glanced around and tapped his hands on the counter, desperate for anything to occupy his attention for a second. He read the motto on a poster, a mission statement on another, common allergens on a third, then a whole list of other resources — shelters, clinics, employment agencies — with addresses and phone numbers. Finally, his gaze settled on the book that Vanilla had been reading. He tilted his head, squinting at the title.

“This is a book?” he asked aloud.

“. . . Yes?”

He looked up to see Vanilla in the doorway. She held a few bags in one hand, her head cocked in confusion.

“I mean — no, I know what a book is,” he stuttered quickly, pointing to the book on the counter. “I just, I’ve seen this movie, it’s one of my favorites. I just didn’t realize it was based on a book, is all I meant.”

“Oh!” Vanilla laughed and set the bags on the counter. “Well, like I said, I love a good mystery.”

“You cracked it yet?”

“My current theory is the postman with a newspaper to cover his tracks. Am I close?”

“Well, I’m not tellin’.”

Vanilla laughed. “Well, I’ve heard so much about the movie, so I thought I’d give it a try. But I wanted to read it first, you know?”

Vector raised an eyebrow. “What’s the verdict?”

She smiled sheepishly. “I think there’s a reason the movie’s more well known,” she admitted.

He grimaced sympathetically. “No good?”

“The writing is terribly drab, I’m afraid, and it tends to drag through the minutia of the paperwork rather than the mystery itself.”

“Well, I think a big part of it was the guy trying to de-glamorize investigative work a bit. There was a good hint of that in the movie, too. He wanted to show that it’s not all exciting car chases and dusting for fingerprints.”

Vanilla gave him a curious smile. “Would you say that’s accurate, detective?”

For some reason, the playful way that she said it made Vector’s face flush with heat. The phenomenon distracted him for a moment, while he fumbled for his reply.

“Well, it’s — there’s — yeah, it’s a lot more paperwork, I guess, than people think.”

“Interesting.”

“But, I can guarantee the movie is probably better,” he added. “Really tense, super exciting. I’ve seen it thirty times, and the ending still gets me, y’know? It’s a classic.”

Vanilla hummed thoughtfully. “Well, I look forward to seeing it.” She opened one of the bags and pulled out a few cans of soup. “Shall we go through these?”

Vector nodded quickly, embarrassed that he’d gotten so sidetracked. She was probably eager to get him out of there.

“Oooo, what’d we get?” Charmy cried, zipping back to Vector’s shoulder. “Did we get ice cream?”

“No ice cream,” Vector replied gruffly, waving him away.

“Awwww.”

It wasn’t much, but it would be enough for the week. A loaf of bread, bag of rice, jar of peanut butter, a few boxes of pasta and mac and cheese, a couple boxes of cereal, a few cans of soup, a jug of milk, and a bag of coffee. Nothing exciting, but it would do. Vector packed everything back in as Vanilla quickly jotted down everything that he’d been given.

“Thanks,” he said, glancing to make sure Charmy hadn’t wandered off again. “Anything else I need to do?”

“No, you’re all set,” Vanilla replied distractedly.

He nodded and turned to leave.

“But!”

He paused and glanced back.

Vanilla hesitated, apparently now stumbling over her own words. “Um, I’ve got a daughter,” she said. “Cream.”

“Oh.” Vector paused for perhaps a second too long, uncertain how to react. “Cool.”

“Well, she’s around Charmy’s age, I think,” Vanilla explained quickly. “Every Sunday I take her to the park — you know that one by the pier?”

“Dolphin park!” Charmy cheered, recalling the dolphin statue that he liked to climb on. “I love that place!”

“Yeah, we go down when we can,” Vector chuckled.

Vanilla smiled in relief. “Well, if you ever want to borrow the book — I’m almost done with it. And I’m at the park on Sundays. Around ten. If. . .?”

Vector blinked. “Oh!” He hadn’t actually hung out with anyone for. . . a long time. The agency had taken up so much of his time, not to mention the two kids who had materialized in his life out of thin air that he was scrambling to care for.

Did he even have any friends at this point?

“You want me to be her friend?” Charmy interjected with a frown.

“Well, I just think you’d get along,” Vanilla amended.

“Is she cool? I’m only friends with cool people.”

“Charmy!”

Vanilla chuckled. “Yes, I think she’s pretty cool.”

Charmy nodded. “Cool.”

“Cool.” Vector cleared his throat. “Yeah, I think we can do that. Sunday?”

“At ten.”

“At ten.”

“At dolphin park!” Charmy added helpfully.

“Dolphin park.” Vector waved once more, then stepped back out to the street. He exhaled heavily once they were safely outside.

“Why’re you all red?” Charmy asked, hovering inches from his face. “You look like Espio when he’s mad.”

“Shut up,” Vector grumbled, hefting the bags. “C’mon, let’s see if there’s a case at home.”

They did go to dolphin park, Sunday, at ten in the morning. Vanilla introduced them to Cream, a tiny rabbit who was staring up at them from behind her mother’s skirts. Charmy decided that he needed to assess her coolness for himself and dragged her to the playground, leaving Vector and Vanilla to stumble through small talk for a few minutes.

Once she handed over the book and gave him a brief but unflattering review, conversation flowed more easily.

Vector agreed to read it and return it to her on one of the following Sundays. They discussed the movie — what Vector knew and what Vanilla didn’t, yet. She told him about her flower shop, that she volunteered at the food bank most Fridays. He told her a bit about the agency, about Espio, who had skipped out on the park day in favor of the library.

Vanilla was fun. Vector hadn’t realized how much he’d missed just casually talking to people his own age. It was nice, too, talking about raising children, the strain of doing it alone. Vector was relieved to hear that even Vanilla had her struggles, different though they were.

Charmy and Cream hit it off, too. The adults interrupted their game of dragging each other off the swings to ask what they were doing. Charmy brightly replied, “We’re playing pirates and mermaids! One of us is the pirate, and the other is the mermaid who drowns ‘em!”

Vector was mortified. Vanilla, much to his relief, only laughed.

“And which are you?” she asked. “The pirate or the mermaid?”

“We’re taking turns, see?” Charmy demonstrated by taking his seat on a swing. Cream snuck up behind him as he rocked back and forth, singing some approximation of a sea shanty in a gravelly voice.

“Argh, what a great day to be a pirate on these safe and calm waters!”

When Cream grabbed him and tackled him down to the ground, he writhed and wailed and gurgled until she, cackling, pinned him down. Charmy rolled around for a moment more before sticking his tongue out and lying limp on the woodchips, until they both broke out in giggles.

“I am so, so sorry about him,” Vector mumbled as they turned away. Vanilla was laughing too hard to reply for a moment.

They started visiting the park every Sunday, to meet with Vanilla and Cream. Espio came sometimes, just to sit in a tree and read. He got dragged into games every once in a while, though he often managed to evade involvement beyond the damsel in distress that sat, engrossed in his book, while the kids fought through imaginary aliens or pirates or alien pirates to save him. When Charmy shouted, “Look out, Espio, they’re right behind you!” he’d flatly called back, “Oh noooo, save me Captain Cream,” without looking up.

Vanilla heard that the movie theater was showing the film that had sparked their initial conversation and asked Vector to accompany her. Charmy stayed with Cream, watched by her babysitter, a sweet younger hedgehog name Amy.

They went out every so often, sometimes for a movie or just to walk around the park when they were both short on cash. Sometimes Charmy went to stay with Amy and Cream, sometimes Cream stayed at the agency so Espio could keep an eye on them both.

Vector hadn’t realized how much he’d needed a friend. And if this friend made him blush every time she laughed at a joke, and if she grew flustered when he complimented her — well, that was nobody’s business.

As Charmy grew older, a new hobby that none of them had expected appeared in the Chaotix household.

It turned out the three of them really enjoyed games. Board games and card games, for the most part. They started going to yard sales whenever they had a few extra bucks — Vector would look for CDs or records, Espio would browse the books, and Charmy would hunt for new games. Then they’d bicker over what game to play when the agency was closed and the windows were cracked open and the new records lazily spinning. But no matter what they settled on, Vector had noticed a discrepancy that didn’t exist in most friendly game nights.

To the Chaotix, rules didn’t exist as rules, per se. They weren’t obstacles that everyone had to overcome in order to fairly declare victory. No, they were just more moving parts to the game, things to be manipulated, things with loopholes to be exploited and contradictions to be argued. One didn’t win by winning, one won if nobody else caught exactly how they were cheating.

Perhaps he should have tried to instill some sense of honor in them. But it did make board games infinitely more interesting.

Vector found that he could argue the rules pretty effectively. It was similar to interrogating a suspect. He found a loophole and pressed against it until everyone else had no choice but to concede.

“But it says to draw three cards if the player draws a flower card! This is a palm tree, which is not a flower! No, I know the flower cards are all green, but it doesn’t say a green card, it says a flower card! Just because all the flower cards are green doesn’t mean all the green cards are flowers, as evidenced by this palm tree card, which is not a flower!”

Espio was predictably very good at sleight-of-hand, tucking extra tokens into his glove or snatching a pawn with his tail and acting offended that anyone would impede on his honor when accused. He had mastered timing, as well, slipping his extra loot into his pile right when nobody would notice him doing so.

Charmy just tried to distract the others and move his pawns ahead a couple spaces or grab a couple extra cards. Sometimes they let him do it, just do they could pretend to catch him when they really wanted to win. Sometimes he really did get them, though. He was a pretty smart kid.

Game nights in the Chaotix Detective Agency often ended in shouting and flipped boards and scattered pieces and cards stabbed into the walls with various ninja weapons. It was a stress relief, perhaps, a release of pent up frustrations. It never went too far, and more often than not, somebody was laughing triumphantly in the midst of the chaos. Nobody ever really won as much as the game just dissolved below them. It was always a mess.

And then they’d work together to clean up the dismembered game, and the next weekend they’d go to a yard sale and find another.

Espio learned how to play chess from a book, then taught Charmy. Charmy was confused by the overall strategy, but he knew how each piece was allowed to move, and he liked the idea that the game was really a big battle between two evil kingdoms, so he enjoyed it more than any of them had expected. He was still only about as good as a five-year-old would be expected to be, but sometimes he pulled a really brilliant strategy that left Espio reeling and Vector laughing proudly. Vector knew how to play, but he’d never enjoyed it much. He did, however, really like watching. Because, somehow, they still found ways to break the rules.

It was a Saturday, and there was no case to speak of. The three of them sat in the living room upstairs. An old blues album (Espio’s choice) was spinning on the player. Soft, soulful music drifted through the air. The windows were open, the breeze rustling through the curtains and the drawings and scrap paper left on the floor. It was finally warm enough that they could sleep through a whole night without the heaters running, which was nice both because the radiators were so noisy and also because only one of them ever seemed to work at a time, and it was anybody’s guess as to which one was running at any given moment. All three of them had been relieved when it finally started warming up. They were taking frequent naps in the sunshine, warming their scales and wings, to make up for the long, laborious nights on the floor in makeshift tents.

Now, however, everyone was wide awake.

Espio and Charmy sat on the floor, frowning at the chess board as though it were a Wanted poster.

“I’m moving my knight here,” Espio murmured, shifting the piece, “and capturing your rook.”

“Well,” Charmy said proudly, “I’m going to move my pawn here so I can get your bishop next turn.”

“Never narrate your next move. Anyways, my bishop takes your pawn.”

Charmy scowled at his pieces scattered on the board, then at Espio. “My pawns demand the prisoner back.”

Espio glared at him. “That’s not how this game works.”

“Well, that’s how I’m playing it!” Charmy announced stubbornly. “Play along. Or are you too dumb?”

Vector was watching all this from the couch like it were a tennis match.

Espio pursed his lips, then nodded once. “Fine. Your pawns demand the prisoner back.”

“Yeah! They’re really angry!”

Espio shook his head behind his tented fingers. “You’ll need more bargaining power than that, I’m afraid.”

“My pawns have unionized,” Charmy declared, gathering them all up into one space in the middle of the board. He looked very proud to have used the big word he learned from a case last week.

Espio snorted, a small smile twitching at his lips. “What have they unionized against?”

“The evil king. Why are they fighting and he’s just hidin’ out?”

“Fair enough.”

 “They’ve unionized and they’ll — they’ll unionize your pawns, too, if you don’t give mine back.”

Espio smiled slyly and picked up his knight. “Well, my knight has gone rogue and thinks your pawns look an awful lot like bowling pins.”

“No!”

“He’s — he’s going to knock over all your pawns like bowling pins.”

“Aw, come on!” Charmy cried in dismay, watching his pieces scatter. He picked up his bishop. “My holy guy puts a curse on your whole kingdom.” He waved it around with a woowaaa noise that typically accompanied magic in the cartoons he watched.

“Well, in that case —” Espio picked up his king and set it towards the middle-edge of the board, “my cowardly king has decided he can’t deal with a unionized workforce and an evil curse.”

“Oh, did yours unionize too? I thought I didn’t get a chance.”

“Yes, they — the propaganda.”

“Aaaaaah.”

“They got a flier.”

“Cool!” Charmy picked up his queen. “My queen is escaping her evil king.” He set the piece near Espio’s king, just one of Espio’s rooks separating them.

“Good for her.” Espio hummed, clearly fighting a smile. He was getting into the groove of it now, this battle of absurd wits. “I think. . . my rook is just going for a walk.”

“A walk?”

“He’s looking for his friend, the other rook you took a little while ago. Plus he doesn’t feel like dying for such a cowardly king.”

“Is he unionized, too?”

“He’s. . .” Espio’s voice swelled with repressed amusement, “he’s on his way to join.”

“Ooooh.” Charmy studied the board. He grabbed his queen and made it lean closer to Espio’s king piece. He raised his voice to a shrill cry. “Hey there, handsome, you come to this battlefield often?”

Like a green flash at sunset or an iceberg breaking, Espio snorted and threw his head back and laughed. Vector jumped at the noise, so rare and so valuable. Charmy looked up, his mouth agape in shock, morphing into a grin, incredulous that he had caused it.

Espio never just chuckled or guffawed when he laughed. No, it exploded out of him, as though every joke he’d missed or rolled his eyes at had been building up inside until something or another finally burst it out, almost against his will. It was such a novelty, and over a game of chess. He laughed loudly, enough that he had to wipe his eyes before he reached over and took his king piece.

“No,” he growled in a deep voice, “in fact, this is my first time outside the castle walls! The first time seeing my own kingdom!”

“Oh, cool, are you — you having fun? How do you like it?”

“I mean, I’m standing in the middle of a bloody battlefield right now, so. . .”

“Yeah.”

“Not great.”

“No, yeah, this is a pretty bad first day.” Charmy made the piece spin in place. “I have a cool castle over here if you want to get back inside, there’s just an evil king we’d have to kill first.”

“I mean, I came out here to avoid ruling an evil kingdom, so. . .”

“You can rule my evil kingdom anyday, baby!”

“Wha —” Vector sat up, jaw dropped. Espio burst out laughing again, leaning back on one hand while the other covered his eyes. “Where are you getting this talk?” Vector cried in dismay.

“From the TV!” Charmy replied cheerfully. “They say stuff like that all the time on the old shows you watch!”

Espio fell back onto the rug now, trying and failing to muffle his mirth behind his hands. “I’m sorry,” he gasped, wiping his eyes. “Sorry, just — pfffffffft —!”

“Alright, we gotta start checkin’ your TV time more,” Vector muttered, crossing his arms as he sat back.

“But they’re your shows!” Charmy protested. “I only see them when you’re watchin’ them at night!”

Vector sputtered for a moment, grappling for some response, some excuse, some way he could keep watching his sitcoms without corrupting this kid.

“What are they talking about, anyways?” Charmy chirped.

Espio rolled over and hid his face in his arm. He was still laughing. As much as he’d appreciated the sound at first, Vector really wished he’d shut up.

Time kept turning. They kept struggling for cases and then struggling for rent, then playing music at night and throwing game boards at each other on weekends. The walls became papered with Charmy’s drawings. He liked making newspaper hats and then trying to sneak them onto Vector and Espio’s heads. Espio wrote more poetry — some he shared, most he didn’t. Some in Common, some in his native tongue. He taught Vector and Charmy some of his favorite words in that language, the words for believe and vault and shift. Vector showed them more music and kept them as safe as he could on their investigations.

There were three toothbrushes in the cup on the bathroom sink — purple, yellow, green. There were two beds in the second bedroom, two bedspreads — purple, yellow. Espio would tease Charmy sometimes, using the color-coordinated items as props. He would turn himself yellow and reach for the yellow toothbrush, acting confused when Charmy argued.

“But I am yellow, Charmy, can’t you see? You said it’s yours because you’re yellow. Now I’m yellow, doesn’t that make it mine?”

He would trick Charmy into going to bed when he resisted the same way,  yawning and shifting to a soft ochre and making a big show of climbing into the yellow bed until Charmy pushed him out and firmly planted himself under the covers. Espio told him that if he could spend all night in the yellow bed, he’d believe that it was really Charmy’s.

The bee would be asleep within the hour.

Espio would stay up a bit longer, writing or meditating or reading. There were always four books on his bedside table — his dictionary, his thesaurus, his journal, and whatever library book he was reading at the time.

Vector taught them how to investigate, how to interrogate a witness and follow a paper trail and fight against injustice, how to sniff out lies and find the flaws in a story. He carried Charmy upstairs when he fell asleep on the couch and tucked a blanket around Espio when he did the same. He let Espio hide for a couple days every few months when he shed and was too embarrassed to leave. He gave Charmy messy haircuts.

Charmy turned four and then five and then six. Espio turned fourteen and then fifteen. Vector was twenty-one, then two, then three. After each birthday, he was left wondering when he’d finally feel grown up.

They met Knuckles the Echidna, then Sonic the Hedgehog. They got roped into saving the world a few times. Sometimes they got paid. Sometimes they didn’t. But it was fine. Shook things up a little, gave the Chaotix some good recognition.

It worked. No matter how many meals they had to skip or how many winter nights they spent, cold-blooded and exhausted, in a makeshift tent around the noisy radiator in the living room, they made it work. Sometimes the water in the taps sputtered and stopped with no explanation. The washing machine sounded like an angry animal in a cage when it ran. Wallpaper ripped, and crayon drawings were taped over the tears to hide it. But it was theirs. It was Chaotix Detective Agency, and to all of them, it was home.

It worked.

It took Espio a long, long time to shake the habit of grabbing a weapon when the bell over the door rang. Every time, he expected to turn and see those metal monsters, that horde of zombots tearing through his home like it was nothing but cobwebs.

Like nothing was real.

He never could forget that moment, no matter how hard he tried.

Chapter Text

Amy herded Cream into the shuttle before turning for a hushed word with someone else. Espio hadn’t seen what had happened, but the little rabbit was crying, and Vanilla wasn’t with her, so he could deduce. Cream shuffled towards him, her eyes vacant, haunted. He was the only familiar person in that shuttle, he realized. Gemerl and Vector — he was so close with Vanilla, had he seen? Did he know yet? — were still wrestling the doors shut. Amy was talking to someone else, something about Tails and Central City.

So Cream came to Espio. The one who had babysat when Amy couldn’t, brought Charmy over for playdates and a few extra bucks when her mother had to work late or went out with Vector for whatever they did. She was Charmy’s best friend. She’d seen what he had, that monster in the shape of the boy they both loved clawing its way out of the glass and reaching for destruction.

He should have stopped it.

He should have stopped a lot.

Espio put an arm around Cream’s shoulders and led her into the relative safety of the aircraft. “This way,” he murmured. “There’s an open seat here.”

Cream said nothing as he guided her to a seat in the corner, hidden from most angles, right near the cockpit. When she didn’t move to sit, he picked her up and set her in the seat. She blinked, as though just waking up, as he fished for the seatbelt tucked against the wall.

“Mr. Espio,” she mumbled, brow furrowed like she’d only just noticed him.

He nodded. “Yes.”

Cream twisted the hem of her skirt. Her chin trembled. “M—Mother, she —”

Espio inhaled sharply. “Watch your hands.” She dutifully lifted her paws and he buckled the belt over her lap, cinching it snugly so she wouldn’t slide around. He reached for the complex harness over her head, but her small voice distracted him again.

“Is she. . .?”

Espio sighed and released the harness. He stepped back and looked at her. She was desperate, turning to him of all people for comfort. And still, looking into those big, helpless eyes, watching the tears mat the fur on her face, he couldn’t bring himself to lie.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. Cream whimpered and dropped her head. He crouched in front of her. “But — I do know that you’re not completely alone here, okay?” he continued haltingly. Gaia, he was bad at this. He wished he’d let Amy buckle her in. Or Vector, where was Vector? But, no, it was just him. This was his job. He didn’t want to fail again, but he was stumbling. “We’re going to take care of you now, alright? All of us.”

Cream looked up at him. “You are?”

He nodded. “Vector, Amy, and I for sure. I have no doubt others will be looking after you as well. You’re not —”

“Oh, no you don’t!”

Espio’s heart dropped.

Somehow, before even looking, he knew what had happened. His gaze whipped towards the door. He could see Vector just beyond wrestling an infected Charmy to the ground, bear-hugging the struggling zombot as liquid chrome crawled over his body.

Espio’s eyes widened. Everything went numb. He heard Cream scream.

“Vector!” He hardly felt himself, hardly realized he was running, reaching, reaching —

“What are you thinking?!” Someone grabbed him and pulled him back and he wrenched himself away just as Vector ran outside and kicked back a few more zombots. His ears were ringing, drowning out everything, until Vector looked back with a wink, a smile, and Charmy struggling under his arm. Like he was just trying to get him to bed, like he was just protesting for ten more minutes.

“Hey, Espio. You’re lead detective now.”

Then the door shut with a sound like thunder.

Espio felt his knees hit the ground. He stared at the closed door, the blank, scuffed metal. He heard the screams and growls on the other side, the agony, the claws raking down the walls, the moans of the half-turned. They were screaming, were they in pain? Was Vector in pain? Had Charmy been in pain? He hoped they weren’t, that they felt nothing anymore. That they were both numb monsters while Espio was left here, safe and burning.

It was all gone.

They were gone.

He was standing in that office again, begging for a chance, and nothing happened. There was nobody there to help him. There was no crocodile behind the desk. There was no bumblebee in the alley. There was no couch in the office, no records upstairs, no room with two beds, no chessboard, nobody left.

It was like the ground had opened up to swallow him whole. He wished it would, he wished it would, there was nothing left of him to walk anyways. He’d become dark. He’d become nothing. There was just a void where a moment ago there was a ninja, a detective, someone who was someone to someone, and now they were all gone.

He didn’t know how to be alone anymore.

“C’mon, Espio,” Amy whispered. There were tears on her face, tears on his, but she reached down and pulled him to his feet. “We’ve got to move.”

“Roger.” It was all he knew how to say, only instinct guiding his voice. Roger. He’d thought that was such a funny word when he’d first heard it, some random name to acknowledge information. Roger that. I hear you and here’s the most inane word to tell you.

Vector had given him a directive. A role. ‘You’re lead detective now.’  Espio had to fulfill that. He kept failing them, over and over and over and here he was surviving for it, but he wouldn’t fail again. He’d do as he’d been directed. ‘You’re lead detective now.’ Lead because there was nobody else.

He’d follow Vector’s orders, one last time.

Espio staggered back into the shuttle and caught himself against the wall as the door shut, as it lifted off the ground. His limbs felt numb. He was sinking into soft ground and he couldn’t fight his way out.

“Mr. Espio?”

He looked up. Cream was staring at him. He hardly even registered her as Cream, just saw a familiar rabbit, another face looking to him, another person he could fail.

He had failed. Her seatbelt was only half done.

Espio pushed himself off the wall and managed to sway over to her. “Arms up,” he mumbled, reaching again for the harness on the wall.

But she hugged him instead.

Espio froze when her arms locked around his middle. He almost stepped back, almost pushed her off and pulled away. Danger danger dirty SICK. But he didn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to hug her back. But he stood still.

“We’ll look after you, too,” Cream whispered.

Espio stared down at her. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t think of what that meant. Couldn’t think about the fact that the only person he really trusted to look after him had just vanished into a horde of monsters.

For him.

He harshly rubbed his eyes. “Arms up,” he repeated hoarsely. This time, she obliged, and he was able to finish buckling her in. He tightened the straps to ensure she was secure — she was too small, far too small for the seat. The only comfort he could manage to return was a quick squeeze of her hand before he stepped back and let Amy take over.

He stood at the front of the shuttle and watched the diseased world pass below them.

“Espio?” Amy was at his side, her voice soft. “I’m — I’m sorry about your brothers.”

“They’re not my brothers.” The response was instinctive, repeated for years to nosy strangers. “We’re coworkers, that’s it.” He ignored the rasp in his voice and hastily wiped his eyes.

Amy didn’t respond. She just took his hand in hers and squeezed. Espio didn’t return the squeeze, didn’t even look at her. They both just kept their eyes on the windows, on the landscape below.

But he didn’t pull away.

He’d lost enough already.

Chapter Text

Their sign, the one Vector had been so proud of, Chaotix Detective Agency: We’re Detectives You Want on Your Side!, hung off one nail, sagging over the doorway.

Espio shuffled slowly up the front path. Patches of grass were torn out on either side of him. The door hung ajar. He had to lean most of his weight against it to push it open. It dragged, groaned along the floor as he did. He saw the scratches it left in its wake.

The windows were broken in. Broken glass littered the floor, the rug. The file cabinets were overturned. Paper was strewn about the room. Things had even been ripped off the walls — some of Charmy’s drawings, the game card that he’d pinned up with a kunai months ago that they’d never bothered to remove because they didn’t like the game enough to play it again, the tangle of red yard and suspect photos for their last case. All shredded and cast about. A couple cushions on the couch had been torn up. Claw marks raked down the walls, tearing through the faded wallpaper as though through flesh, bleeding ruin into the room. Espio didn’t go into the kitchen, but he could see the dishes broken and chairs overturned in there. He could smell the rot.

Espio stared at the wreckage. He couldn’t make sense of it. He couldn’t see where to start, what to reach for first.

Vector rumbled a sigh as he stepped in behind him. “Shit,” he muttered. He kicked aside a bit of debris. “Charm, you’d better fly in here. Lots of broken glass.”

Charmy floated in behind him, hovering dutifully above the ground. “Oh, no,” he whispered. His voice trembled. “It’s. . .”

“It’s nothing we can’t fix,” Vector decided firmly, maneuvering carefully inside. “C’mon, let’s get a look upstairs.”

Upstairs was in slightly better shape — though one of the stairs themselves had been ripped up, Espio had to climb around it on the wall. Some of Vector’s records and CDs had been destroyed — he tried to pretend he wasn’t upset, but he was a bad actor — but most had gotten away with only scratches or dents. The ones on the top shelves were miraculously unharmed. The board games had been ripped from the shelves, pawns and cards and plastic coins scattered across the floor. It was exhausting just to look at, the idea of collecting and sorting into every box and stuffing it all back together.

Vector went down one way to check his bedroom. Espio drifted, ghostlike, down the opposite hallway. He paused at the bathroom as Charmy continued on to their bedroom. Espio was caught staring at the toothpaste and mirror shards and the cup knocked onto the floor. He stepped forward, picked up the toothbrushes — purple, yellow, green — and slipped them into the cup. He carefully set it back on the sink. One thing fixed. Better than nothing.

He found Charmy in the bedroom, hovering over the floor and quietly looking at the wreckage. Nightstands tipped, desks gorged. The bedspreads were crumpled on the floor, covered with muddy prints. Charmy buzzed to his own yellow blanket and picked it up, shaking off whatever dust fell loose. Espio wandered to his own bed. He knelt and tenderly picked up the books that had been tossed by the bed.

His dictionary was open facedown, stained and dripping with mud. His journal had been kicked under the bed, the cover torn and a few pages wet, but largely unharmed. The ink ran on the first ten pages, the words mixing and lost.

He found the thesaurus in pieces. Pages ripped out, shredded, disemboweled across the floor. The cover was nearly empty, just crumbled, soggy cardstock.

Espio sat on his knees, holding the cover and the pages from Op-Os. His hands were shaking.

“I can’t get it off.”

Espio looked up. Charmy was still trying to shake off his blanket. Espio took a deep breath and carefully set the pages on the bedside table.

“We’ll collect and wash all the linens first,” he said hoarsely, pushing himself to his feet. “Then we’ll at least have somewhere to sleep tonight.”

Charmy nodded and dropped the blanket into his arms. “Okay.”

They did just that, collecting their blankets and sheets and pillow cases and shaking out whatever would fall before piling them in the corner. Espio dropped everything at the laundry machines in the hall, then went to get Vector’s. The croc himself was downstairs, tackling the kitchen. The laundry detergent on the high shelf was unharmed, so Espio stuffed as many sheets and blankets as he could into the machine, dumped in a healthy helping, and let it rumble away. The grating sound, the thumping and whirrrring that used to keep him up and drive him halfway mad, was something close to comforting, now.

It was slow going, but the bedrooms were tidied. The bathroom was swept of broken glass and scrubbed of the spilled toothpaste and shampoo. Vector helped Charmy to take a bath first as Espio reassembled their beds.

“Es,” Vector yawned, leaning into the doorway, “you want the next shower?”

Espio shook his head as he tucked his pillow into its case. “You go ahead.”

It was nearing sunset. The noise in the street hadn’t died down since they’d arrived in the early afternoon. It was humming in the back of his skull, like it would engrave itself, bury itself and live there forever.

Charmy shuffled in, wrapped in a towel. His eyes were drooping. “Is my bed ready?” he mumbled.

“Yes,” Espio replied, leaving his own bed half-done to help him finish drying off. He never could dry his hair by himself.

Charmy flinched as Espio grabbed the towel.

Espio paused. “Are you alright?” His eyes flickered over his form, scanning for the thousandth time for any injuries he may have missed. Had he inadvertently hurt him? Was there a bruise or wound that he’d missed under that fine downy fuzz?

Charmy nodded. “I’m fine,” he whispered. He was tense. He was shaking.

Espio hesitated, but then he took the towel and gently dried off his dark curls. He dried off his face, his antennae, then helped him into bed and tucked him in.

“Are you sure you don’t need my help?” Charmy mumbled. He was rapidly losing consciousness.

“Just try to get some sleep,” Espio said, absentmindedly stroking his head. “We’ll sort out more in the morning.”

Charmy hummed. He was already asleep. By the time Espio finished making his own bed, Vector reappeared to tell him the bathroom was open. Espio locked the door and peeled off his gloves and shoes. He was bleeding under his wrist cuffs, that was unexpected. How long had he had them on? He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d taken them off. He turned the shower as hot as it would go, scrubbed his scales until everything burned, peeled off what he’d begun shedding under the stress of the last couple weeks and then some, then soaped until everything stung. Then he got out and brushed his teeth until his gums bled.

He still felt dirty.

When he shuffled out again, Vector was in the living room, now fruitlessly trying to sort through the board games.

“Do you want help with that?” Espio yawned.

Vector looked up and shook his head. “Nah, it’s not important. I’m about to turn in. I just wanted to make sure you got to bed alright.”

Espio scowled and looked away. “I’m not a child,” he muttered.

“Well, no,” Vector huffed, pushing himself to his feet. “But, uh. . . y’know.”

Espio did. But he said nothing.

“What’s that from?”

He looked down at his wrist again. He hadn’t realized he’d been scratching at the wound.

“Nothing,” he said, shaking off his hand. “Just irritation from my cuffs.”

“The first aid kit’s mostly intact,” Vector grunted, nodding to the couch. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

“I’m —”

“Es.”

He stood for a moment. Then shuffled to the couch and sat down. Vector left and returned with the kit, and Espio held out his arms for him to treat. He was too tired to resist. The quicker he could get to bed, the better.

They were both silent as Vector cleaned the minor wounds — shallow, hardly even seeping, he really didn’t need treatment. As he picked up the gauze, Vector muttered, “So, how you holding up?”

Espio shrugged. “I’m uninjured,” he reported numbly. “Just this and a slightly strained ankle, but nothing major. I should be back to full capabilities soon.”

“Okay. Uh, good to know.” He wrapped the left wrist and reached for the right. “But I know you know that’s not what I meant.”

Espio sighed. He shook his head. “I’m just tired,” he mumbled. “I just want to go to sleep.”

Vector sat back and frowned at him. “You want to talk about anything?”

Espio just shrugged. “I’m tired,” he repeated. It was all he could think. So maybe it was true.

“Alright, just —” Vector paused, frowning at Espio’s arm. He gently slid his hand under one, frowning at the scales. “What happened here?”

Espio blinked, trying to clear his bleary vision, to see the deep blue bruises sprouting on his right arm. The type of bruises that wouldn’t disappear with shifting color, deep and ugly and sick. Bruises like a handprint, dark and gruesome where the fingertips had rested. Brutal claws sinking into his flesh.

“Oh, I think that’s where the Zetti grabbed me.”

Vector looked up in shock. “The what?”

Espio’s vision was blurring again. “The Zetti.”

“You fought a Zetti?”

“Mhm.”

“Wh — how? Why?”

Espio was confused. He opened his mouth to answer, ‘You were there,’ because he’d heard him. He’d heard Vector calling to him from the buildings, ‘Duck, dodge, watch your back, kid, keep your head up! Get the higher ground!’ heard Charmy telling him just how to rile the monster up, ‘The big dummy won’t even chase you himself! What, is he scared? Big cry baby gotta make his robots do everything for him?’ They’d been there.

But they hadn’t.

No, he’d done that alone.

He’d faced alone that otherworldly thing, those long, sharp teeth, the slimy tongue and hot breath inches from his face, crazed eyes that were somehow dead and burning all at once. The claws digging into his arm, twisting just before he dropped, like he hoped to break it, like he liked watching Espio squirm. Like a worm on a fish hook. 

Espio opened his mouth, closed it, and opened again. “I’m tired.”

Vector studied him for a long moment, brow furrowed, mouth tugged sharply downward. But he mercifully didn’t press.

“Alright.” He tied off the last bandage and patted Espio’s shoulder. “Let’s get some sleep, huh?”

“Mhm.” Espio stood, picking absentmindedly at the bandages, and trudged to his room. Vector followed, for some reason. He lingered in the doorway for a moment, looking between Espio pulling his blankets back and Charmy asleep in his bed. When Espio looked at him, he finally nodded and stepped back.

“Night, kid.”

“Goodnight.”

He shut the door. Espio climbed into bed and switched off the lamp. His entire head felt heavy, like it would crack under another moment. But he couldn’t sleep for a long, long while. When he heard Vector shuffling down the hall, he closed his eyes and pretended. He heard the door open, heard Vector sigh after a couple minutes, then heard it shut again. He returned to his own room.

Espio fell asleep.

He woke halfway through the night to Charmy in his arms.

He didn’t know why he hadn’t woken. But it didn’t matter. His kunai was gone, anyways. Lost in the wreckage.

“Your dinosaur book is broken.”

Espio grunted and rolled onto his side. Charmy was sitting on the edge of the bed, pawing through the loose pages of the thesaurus that he’d managed to stack on the bedside table the night before.

“It’s not a dinosaur book,” Espio mumbled, rubbing his eyes. “It’s a thesaurus.”

“Well, it sounds like a dinosaur.”

“What time is it?”

“I dunno. Your alarm clock is broken.”

Espio sighed and untangled his tail from his bedsheets. He squinted at the sunrise. “Why didn’t Vector wake us up?” he groaned.

“Maybe he’s still asleep?” Charmy suggested, rubbing his eyes. “It’s only like, three.”

“It’s at least six. The sun is fully up.”

“Well, I’m super duper sleepy, so it must be super duper early.”

“Or you’re just recovering from being sick for a week.”

Charmy fell silent at that. He picked at the edge of the remains of the thesaurus.

Espio felt a twinge of regret. He wasn’t sure if sick was the right term. Everyone had been calling it a virus. It had just corrected to that in his head, an illness, a disease, something that the body needed to fight off. Maybe that had never been the proper term.

Would be really nice if he had a fucking thesaurus to reference.

Either way, it must have been exhausting. He couldn’t blame Charmy for being tired.

Espio sat up next to Charmy and buried his face in his hands with a groan. His head hurt. He could hear noise again already. People were cleaning the streets, cleaning their homes, calling to each other and arguing with others.

“I’m hungry,” Charmy announced.

“You know where the kitchen is,” Espio retorted flatly. He wasn’t looking at him, head still in his hands, but he could feel Charmy looking at him balefully. He sighed and pushed himself to his feet.

“Alright, come on,” he muttered, reaching for Charmy. “Let’s see if there’s anything edible left.”

Charmy slipped off the bed and tucked himself against Espio’s side. He said nothing as they made their way downstairs.

He’d been really quiet since Angel Island.

“Oh, you’re up!” Vector looked up in surprise as they walked into the kitchen. “I was gonna let you sleep a little longer.”

“We’re hungry,” Charmy mumbled, scrambling onto a chair and then resting his chin on the table. “Do we have any food left?”

“A bit, I been sortin’ out the goods.”

‘The goods’ turned out to be three packs of dried seaweed, a handful of energy bars, and a bag of shredded cheese that had been ripped open but ‘seemed fine.’

They stuck to the energy bars.

“We need to get food today,” Vector sighed, massaging the ridge between his eyes. “I’m not sure how the money situation is going to look, just, like. . . at large, but we’ll figure something out.”

“The Restoration mentioned delivering food,” Charmy ventured. “That’s what Amy was talking about on the way here.”

Espio nodded. “There’s likely to be a shipment here pretty quickly,” he murmured, tearing his wrapper into tiny pieces. “Since we have such a large population.”

Any further speculation on food acquisition was silenced, however. The front door creaked open. Espio looked up as the bell rang, someone letting themself in through the broken locks. He tensed, eyes wide, hand reached for the kunai that wasn’t there because his cuffs weren’t there because he was bleeding but there was someone inside, a monster, a horde of them, breaking down the door, barging in, tearing apart everything —

A perfectly unremarkable face appeared in the doorway to the kitchen.

Despite its mediocrity, that felt somewhat violating to Espio. The office was relatively public space, but the kitchen was part of their home. No matter that it was on the first floor, it was not open to clients.

“Excuse me,” the raccoon ventured. Her voice was weak and thready, her eyes watery from lack of sleep or surplus of stress. “This is that detective agency, right? I don’t mean to barge in so early —”

“Well, start by waiting for an answer at the door,” Espio muttered, pushing his seat aggressively back from the table.

“Espio,” Vector scolded halfheartedly as he followed suit to stand. “Sorry, lady, what’s going on?”

 “I just. . .” The woman pulled out a few photographs and a sorry wad of cash from her pocket. “It’s my daughter and her girlfriend, they were together when the whole thing started — but I’ve — I haven’t heard anything from either of them, I don’t think they’re in Seaside City anymore, but I — I don’t even know where to —”

“You found the right place,” Vector reassured her. His smile was strained as he led her into the office. “Can I take those pictures off your hands for a day or two? Alright, now tell me all you can think of that might help. Yeah, anything.”

The bell didn’t stop ringing all day. Once they got the phone plugged in, that didn’t stop ringing either.

They didn’t have time to get food.

Chapter Text

The Agency was empty.

Charmy woke up alone.

He couldn ’t remember why. He wandered the halls, looking for Vector, for Espio, for anyone. Had they abandoned him in the night? Gone on a trip? Were they out super duper duper late doing detective work? Probably. Probably they left real early to start on a case. Probably they wouldn’t just leave him for good.

Well, maybe he could prove that he was big enough to come with them. Maybe he could solve a case of his own! Maybe he could show them how good he was!

He was responsible, too. Look, here he was going to the bathroom to brush his teeth, without even being told. That ’d show he was a big kid. That’d show he could help.

He stood on his stool, reached for his toothbrush, and looked in the mirror.

A monster stared back.

Charmy screamed. He screamed as the thing — the him — inside the mirror snarled and gnashed its teeth. He screamed as it pressed against the glass. He screamed as the mirror turned to liquid and trickled down the wall, flooding the bathroom, the house, the whole wide world, as his reflection howled from the ripples. He screamed as he sank, as he was pulled under, as the cold, sour, viscous liquid glass filled his mouth and throat and lungs.

He screamed for Vector. For Espio.

Because they always knew what to do, always fixed things. Even as he was dragged down, he knew. They ’d come for him, he knew it. They’d pull him up to the air and pick him up and carry him somewhere warm and safe.

He knew they would.

But they didn ’t.

Charmy jolted awake, gasping for air. He clung to his pillow and huddled deeper under his blanket. That was warm. He wasn’t cold anymore. He was warm. Warm was safe. The liquid mirror was gone. He was dry. He was warm. He was okay. He was okay.

He sat up and hugged his knees to his chest, squinting through the dim light to the other side of the room. The streetlight outside their window always illuminated a bit through the curtains. He could see Espio in his bed. Oddly stiff, breath slightly stilted. Pretending to be asleep, again. He thought he was so good at it. But Charmy noticed his breathing. He wouldn’t inhale as deeply, like there was something heavy sitting on his chest.

He’d been pretending the last few nights. Charmy had noticed.

The door creaked open. Charmy jumped and stared, paralyzed, at the doorway.

In the hallway stood Vector. He frowned at Charmy sitting up in his bed, brow furrowed.

“What’s goin’ on, Bitty Bee?” he asked in a whisper.

Charmy wanted to answer. A nightmare, he wanted to say. I just had another bad dream. But as soon as he opened his mouth, he felt his face crumble, tears welling up in his eyes, a helpless sob pressing on his chest.

“Aw, buddy. . .”

Charmy just held up his arms. Vector shuffled to his bed and picked him up. He curled up and hid his face in Vector’s chest, trying to stifle his cries.

Vector stroked his head with one thumb. “You wanna stay with me tonight?”

Charmy nodded. Vector rubbed his back as he carried him back out to the hall. Charmy peered over his shoulder as the door closed.

Espio was staring at the ceiling.

The office was a mess.

The walls were lined with stacks and stacks of missing person cases, files full to bursting, at first properly organized but then just abandoned in haphazard stacks by the file cabinet when it became too much to hold. Vector spent the next few days on the phone, switching between different lines and getting crankier and snappier as things got more and more confusing. Espio would make a list of witnesses and leads for one person, then a plan to pursue them, only to have a stack of twelve more dropped in front of him and he would have to start all over. Charmy looked at maps and city databases most days. He was reading the reports of Found people and marking them on the map, alerting the others when one of their cases appeared one of the hastily assembled rosters that every city was scrambling to make post-Virus. Then Vector would call and inform the client that their missing person was located in one city or another, likely looking for them too, Espio would toss the file in the approximate direction of the Closed Cases drawer, and then it would begin all over again.

Far from the lamentations of before, when all of them would groan and worry about not getting enough cases, suddenly to the only thing anyone wanted was a break. Espio would have even taken ten minutes outside. He hadn’t left the house in four days, since the onslaught started.

None of them were sleeping well. Vector came to check on Espio and Charmy at least once a night, sometimes twice. He would go to his own room for a couple hours, then shuffle down the hall and ease their bedroom door open. Often he’d just stand and watch them for a moment, watching their breathing, the soft twitch of Charmy’s wings as he slept. Sometimes he’d tuck Charmy’s blanket back around him. Then he’d leave.

Espio pretended to be asleep every time, then opened his eyes and stared at the dark ceiling and tried to remember when he’d last blinked. He could hardly remember what sleep felt like, besides brief snatches of disassociation. Every little noise was a monster, every twitch from Charmy some symptom of a deeper illness, every hitch in his own lungs an airborne strain of the Virus that was turning him to chrome from the inside out. He laid awake and stared at the ceiling and kept his hand around the kunai under his pillow. Whenever Vector came to check on them, he would close his eyes and repeat, ‘It’s just Vector, it’s just Vector, it’s just Vector.’ He’d listen to him move about the room and he’d picture that monster — sharp teeth, dripping maw, mouth torn and twisted in a horrible grin — lurking in the shadows.

It ’s just Vector it’s just Vector it’s Vector it’s Vector it’s Vector.

Charmy hadn’t slept the whole night in his bed once since returning home, waking from nightmares and seeking the comfort of someone else. Sometimes Espio, sometimes Vector. Sometime’s he’d sleep in one bed for a couple hours, then move to the other. Espio wanted to wake him, sometimes, when he began twitching and mumbling from the dreams. But he couldn’t move. The dark rendered him immobile. When Charmy shuffled over to Espio’s bed, Espio would pretend to be asleep again, until he felt the fuzzy antennae brush his cheek and heard Charmy’s breathing slow. Then Espio would open his eyes and keep staring at the ceiling like it might hold some sort of answer for him.

That goddamn phone kept ringing.

Vector was staring at the ceiling. His hands were folded over his chest. His fingers tapping, tap-tap-tap-taptaptaptap. The city was humming softly outside.

He could hear nothing in the house.

They’re in their beds, he reminded himself.

It was so, so quiet.

I saw them before they went to sleep, he said. I tucked Charmy in. I told Espio goodnight.

Maybe he was misremembering. Maybe he was conjuring memories from his frantic fear. Had he seen Espio that day? Charmy? He remembered Charmy flying away into the infected city. He remembered the doors closing on Espio. Those were the clearest memories he would ever have. But everything after that?

I’ve been taking cases for the last three days, he told himself. They’ve been right there in the office with me the whole time. I got annoyed at Espio’s messy handwriting just this morning. I watched Charmy get tangled in the red yarn.

Maybe the Virus had never been cured. Maybe he was still in the Restoration HQ.

Maybe he was still sick.

They ’re just down the hall. I can’t hear them because they’re sleeping. They’re in their beds just down the hall.

But did he know for sure?

He was a detective. He knew more than anyone how unreliable was a memory.

They ’re right here.

He was halfway down the hall, reaching for their door, before he’d even realized that he’d moved. He slowly pushed the door open and squinted in. Espio was in his bed. Charmy was in Espio’s bed. His head rested on Espio’s chest, curled around his stiff form. Charmy was asleep. Espio was pretending.

Vector stood in the doorway. They’re breathing, he said. Look, their chests are rising and falling. Charmy’s wings twitch. Espio’s eyes flicker, because he’s only pretending. Look, they’re fine.

He had to watch for a few minutes, just to be sure, before he could close the door and step back.

Espio’s vision had started blurring when he stood up too fast. His scales had turned a dull, faded imitation of his usual hue. He tried to shift back to his normal vibrancy, but it took too much concentration to hold and he often dropped it without realizing. That probably brought more attention to it than just letting it be.

His head always hurt.

Charmy slept a lot. It was impossible to tell when his energy would suddenly drop and he’d just pass out. It happened like a rock into water, startling and heavy. He spent hours on the office couch in between the cork board and the radio broadcasts. His wings didn’t hum as much anymore.

Vector was living off of coffee. His eyes always looked red. He was always tugging at his chain, like it was a bother more than a familiar sensation.

The repairs to the house had been postponed. Mostly. A couple clients offered to fix something in lieu of money — someone sewed up and cleaned their couch cushions, someone else repaired the door dragging across the floor, though they couldn’t do anything about the locks. The one step was still missing from the staircase. Not a huge deal, since Charmy could just fly over and Espio could stick to the wall for one step and Vector was more than tall enough to just step over it, but Espio worried it would become just another thing that never got fixed. The windows were still broken, wind whistling through and every little noise outside pounding against the walls.

And the cases still kept pouring in.

It wasn’t fair. The Chaotix had their own missing friends to investigate! Sonic was still gone, they hadn’t heard from Mighty but for an ‘I’m safe — M,’ message from a borrowed computer, and Ray had called from a phone booth on the other side of the world. He sounded like he’d been hit by a truck, slurring and stuttering and scared. He’d only managed to ask what had happened before the call cut out, and they had all been worried sick ever since. Espio just wanted to get out and look for them. He wanted to track Ray down and remind him how to use a damn telephone, he wanted to find Mighty and tell him to sign his fucking messages with his full name if he wanted to tell them how safe he really was.

And Sonic. . .

Espio still kind of wanted to hit Sonic.

He really wanted to hit Sonic. He wanted to fight him. Properly fight him. He felt like he’d be satisfied after that — one sufficient showdown, just a brief skirmish to release frustrations, and then things would be fine. Sonic became best friends with several people who tried to kill him. What was one more fight between friends?

Not friends. Not at the moment. Whatever they were. Casual enemies? Enemies felt too strong.

A thesaurus was such a foolish thing to get so paralyzingly upset over. But Espio really missed that stupid thing.

Foes. One fight between casual foes.

Espio’s arm hurt. He looked down to find his hand wrapped around the bruise from the Zetti. He hadn’t realized he’d been pressing on it again. It had been getting darker in the last couple days. Straddling between purples and blues and ugly greens. He held tighter. Squeezing, crushing, eking out every bit of pain that he could get from it. It ached to his bones. It felt like hitting the ground.

He let go and shook off his hand.

The house was breaking.

Espio was stuck.

Chaotix Detective Agency Headquarters was cracking, crumbling, shattering around him. Chunks of the ceiling caved in. Glass exploded across the floor. Papers on the wall caught fire. Espio was at the door and trying to pry it open. It wouldn ’t budge, it wouldn’t give, it wouldn’t let him free. There was someone holding it, blocking it, keeping him in. He was alone and pounding on the door and screaming, screaming, ‘Let me out, let me out, let me out!’

The world was ending outside. It made no difference which side of the door he was on.

He didn ’t care. He wanted to get out.

But he couldn ’t.

“I’m sorry,” he pleaded. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I should have been better! Please, please, I can be better!”

He banged his fists against the door and screamed and begged whoever was on the other side, ‘Don’t leave me!’

But they did.

Espio didn’t feel like he awoke. He was in the crumbling house one second and his bed the next. In both, his heart was hammering, his limbs thrashing. He clawed at his chest and rolled onto his side, gasping for air. He stared, wide-eyed, into the darkness, begging his eyes to adjust.

He could hear noises, people, out on the street, softer in the dark but same as always. He could see Charmy, asleep in his bed. When he heard Vector shuffling down the hall, he buried his face in his pillow and squeezed his eyes shut, struggling to slow his breathing to something convincingly calm, forcing himself to lie limp. Vector quietly pushed the door open and watched them for a moment, then left. Espio kept his face hidden the whole time.

A few minutes later, Charmy awoke and shuffled over to Espio’s bed, climbing up with him and snuggling against his chest.

Espio let him. He kept pretending. He just hoped the bee didn’t notice his heart pounding.

Chapter Text

When Cream and Vanilla stopped by with homemade food and offered to watch the agency to let the boys actually investigate things, Espio felt he could have wept with relief.

He didn’t, of course, but just getting outside for a few minutes was like a revelation.

They three of them followed the cases they knew were likely closest. An older woman with dementia was found at an emergency care shelter by her childhood home. She wouldn’t leave with the detectives, but her son showed up at their call and coaxed her home. A young boy was found at his school, hiding in the cafeteria and eating whatever hadn’t spoiled in the fridge. He didn’t know that it was safe outside. He threw a pencil sharpener at Vector when he approached.

It was a full day. By the time Vector had alerted the last client that their husband was in the hospital, the sun was beginning to grow soft and liquid in the late afternoon. The streets were still packed with cleanup crews and Restoration personnel distributing food and supplies. The city was still half-broken, buildings and market carts and cars standing like broken teeth, but most of the debris had been cleared away by now. It was difficult to keep up with Vector, leading the way confidently through the crowd, but Espio and Charmy were doing their best.

“Great job today, boys!” he said jovially. “That’s four cases off the list!”

Espio paused to let a pair of foxes carrying lumber beams pass in front of him. “What’s the plan for the cases that likely fall outside the city?” he called, ducking around a hedgehog haphazardly swinging a toolbox to catch up again. “We’ve only got two more that we believe ended up here.”

“My wings are tired,” Charmy whined. “Are we almost home?”

“Almost, Charmy,” Espio called back distractedly.

“We’ll have to see how much Vanilla managed to sort out the place,” Vector mused, rubbing his chin. “That was real generous of her, too. We should say thanks somehow. . .”

Espio rolled his eyes. “Gaia’s sake, I don’t think you need an excuse to ask her out at this point,” he muttered. A quokka bumped into him. He gave her a dirty look before trotting to keep up again. “You went out all the time before the Virus.”

“That wasn’t — we’re not going out!”

“For pity’s sake, Vector, everyone knows but you at this point, just —”

“I don’t wanna fly anymore. . .” Charmy yawned. His voice sounded distant. Espio was about to respond again, but he was jostled to the side by a crew trying to carrying a few large chunks of debris to a dumpster. He ducked and dodged and was pushed around so much that he had to spin to locate Vector in the crowd again. The croc hadn’t even noticed that he’d slowed down.

A cart of food wheeled in front of him just as he made to step forward. Vector was getting further away in the crowd.

“Vector.”

He didn’t stop.

Annoyed, Espio cupped his hands around his mouth. “Vector!” he shouted.

Vector paused, cocking his head, but still didn’t turn around.

“Help!”

Espio felt his heart plummet.

Charmy.

He whirled around, frantically scanning the mass of people for the tiny bee. Where the hell had he gone? He’d been flying a second ago, he wasn’t that far behind — was he? Had Espio gotten that disoriented that he’d entirely lost track?

“Help, help!”

Was he being trampled? Crowd-crushed? Kidnapped? Had some enemy that Espio didn’t even remember returned, snatched him up —?

“Vector! Espio!” His screams were ringing off the buildings, turning heads. Espio watched where they were turned, watched where a crowd of well-meaning do-gooders was forming. He began weaving his way through. He could vaguely heard Vector lumbering after him.

“Charmy?” Espio shouted, shouldering a squirrel out of his way. He hardly even noticed. He only heard Charmy, screaming for help, only saw everywhere he wasn’t. “Charmy!”

“Help, please, help, I’m sorry!”

A solid mass of people was huddling around an overturned food truck. “What’s going on, kid? You okay?”

“Charmy!” Espio pushed his way through, but he found himself blocked by the people at the front. “Move!” Without thinking, he grabbed someone’s jacket and hurled them aside. Infection be damned, Charmy needed him. “Move!” He stumbled into the opening, fell to his knees in the space before the truck. “Charmy?”

Charmy was huddled against the hood of the truck, hiding behind his arms. He was trembling with sobs. He looked up at Espio’s call. His eyes widened. “Espio!” he wailed, scrambling forward. Espio held out his arms, and Charmy shot into them. He buried his face in Espio’s shoulder.

“What’s happened?” Espio pressed, squeezing him so tight he almost caused a whole new problem. His heart was racing, his head ringing with adrenaline and terror. He could feel the crowd watching, closing in around them. Danger, danger, danger. “Are you hurt? What’s going on?”

“They’re — they’re everywhere, I can’t get away. . .” Charmy sobbed. His body shook in Espio’s arms. “I couldn’t see you, they were everywhere and I couldn’t see you!”

Espio rubbed his back. He could feel dozens, hundreds, thousands of eyes on them. Keep it together. “It’s over,” he whispered. He stood unsteadily, difficult with an armful of Charmy and legs that wouldn’t stop shaking. “You’re okay.”

“I tried,” Charmy moaned, “you were right, I shouldn’t have left, I’m sorry!”

“You’re okay. It’s over, it’s all over, it’s all over, I’m right here.”

“I just wanted to help, I just wanted to help, I just —”

“I’ve got you, I’m right here.”

“Boys!” Vector had finally caught up, slower than Espio and bogged down in the crowd. “What happened?”

“He’s fine.” Espio turned. Everyone was watching, closing in on every side. “He’s fine.” Just people. In the middle of them, Vector. Not zombots, not enemies, just people, just people, just people. If he looked up he would not see red eyes and dripping, razor sharp teeth. He would see Vector. Just Vector.

Keep it together.

“Do you need help?” Some well-meaning mole who stepped too close. Espio reeled back, clutching Charmy tighter. He wanted to press back to the overturned truck. He longed for something solid at his back, hated the open air behind him where anyone could approach and attack. Which they wouldn’t. Because everything was fine.

“He’s fine!” Espio snapped. He was the calm one, the logical one. His breath was quickening. Keep it together keep it together keep it together keep it together. These weren’t monsters. The Virus was gone. Charmy was not infecting him, Vector was not cornering him. “We just — we’re going home.” 

Charmy sobbed weakly into his shoulder. Espio clumsily rubbed his back. Keep it together keep it together.

Another person stepped into his path. “Is he hurt? We’ve got medics if —”

“Will you people give them some space?” Vector bellowed behind Espio. “You heard ‘im, we’re going home! Just back off!”

The crowd finally parted. Grateful, Espio wasted no time in ducking through. “It’s over,” he whispered, rubbing Charmy’s back. “It’s over, it’s all over.” They were counting on him. He was the only one left. They were counting on him. He needed to stay calm.

Keep it together keep it together keep it TOGETHER —

Charmy sobbed again.

The crowd gradually resumed its usual noise and chaos behind them. Espio felt his legs trembling underneath him. His entire body felt like it was miles away. Without thinking, he ducked into an alley and slumped against a wall. He was heaving every breath, clinging to Charmy like a lifeline.

“Here, Es,” Vector murmured, leaning against the wall between him and the street, providing paltry cover from the crowd. “Give him to me.”

Reluctantly, Espio handed over his cargo to Vector’s waiting hands. He felt untethered without him. He was drifting. He was watching a starburst behind the clouds. He was hanging like a worm on a fish hook, sharp teeth and hot breath and a long, slimy tongue just inches away. He was the last one. They were counting on him.

Charmy just huddled into Vector’s arms, mumbling his name in his jumble of apologies.

“You’re alright, little buddy,” Vector murmured, bundling him in his arms. He disappeared into the embrace. “It’s okay. We’re all okay. I’ve gotcha.”

Espio doubled over, hands on his knees, and screwed his eyes shut. Too much. It was all too much. Keep it together keep it together keep it together.

He shifted, letting his scales melt into the scenery around him. He sank to the ground, curling his knees to his chest. His tail wrapped around the bruise on his arm.

“Espio?” Vector called, his voice tinged with panic.

“I’m still here,” Espio mumbled into his arms, his eyes screwed shut. “I just — I need a moment.”

“Oh. Yeah, for sure.”

“I need a moment, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

Vector rubbed Charmy’s back as they walked. The little bee had long since cried himself out. He was silent now, just slumped against Vector’s chest and fidgeting with his chain. Vector let him.

It was growing darker as they approached the agency. The yard was still a mess. The sign had been propped up against the porch. It was quiet, dark but for one light in the front window. Vector had almost forgotten that the Rabbits had come to help. He wasn’t sure if they were still there. With the shape he was in, this might have been the first time he hoped not to see Vanilla.

He slowly pushed the door open. It was significantly cleaner inside than it had been in weeks. Still not perfect, but orderly, at least. Vanilla stood by the desk, shuffling through a  few papers, but looked up with a smile when they walked in.

“Ah, you’re back!” She slid the papers into the filing cabinet and shut the drawer. “Gemerl took Cream home a little while ago. I was just finishing up, but I wanted to make sure you all got back. . . okay. . .” She frowned at Vector, then Espio, then back again. “Is everything alright?”

Vector tried to force a smile. “Mhm!” He glanced down at Charmy. “You wanna go upstairs with Es for a second?”

Charmy nodded wearily. Espio reached out to accept when he was handed over and went to the stairs. He hardly even spared Vanilla a quick nod before making his way up. He hesitated at the broken step, then stepped cautiously over.

Vanilla turned back to Vector. “Did something happen?”

Vector shrugged and waved a hand. “Um. . .” He glanced towards the kitchen. “Want something to drink?” he offered. “I’ve got. . . water. I don’t even know why I offered, I’m sorry, we don’t — we’ve just got water.”

Vanilla smiled sardonically. “I could go for some water,” she agreed.

Vector led her to the kitchen, grabbed a couple intact glasses from the cabinet, and filled them both at the tap. He handed Vanilla one, drained his one in one go, then went to refill it.

“Vector,” Vanilla murmured, leaning back against the table, “what happened?”

Vector sighed and rested back against the sink. “Charmy had, uh, a bit of a. . . thing.”

“A thing?”

“He got separated from us in the crowd and freaked out. He thought he was back at the beginning, before — before he got turned. He thought he was about to get turned.”

Vanilla’s eyes widened. “Oh, goodness, Vector.”

Vector shook his head. “I should’ve been watching him,” he mumbled, rubbing his brow. “I just — I don’t know, we’d solved a few cases and for a second, just a second, it felt like things were about to go back to normal, but —” He broke off and shook his head. “I wasn’t even able to help him at first. Espio got to him first. I got caught up in the crowd. By the time I got there Espio was holding him and looking at me like — like he was stuck on a bridge and listening to a train getting closer.”

Like he’d opened a door and found a dead body. Like he’d just been told he could leave.

“I haven’t seen him that scared in years, Nil.” Vector turned to refill his water again. “I just left them again. I was too slow again. No reason I shouldn’t’ve gotten there, I just couldn’t.”

The glass overflowed. He broke off, watching the water gushing over his hand. It took him a few seconds too long to remember to turn off the tap. He slowly set the glass in the sink. He couldn’t think.

Vanilla was quiet for a moment. “You tried,” she said softly. “The important thing is that everyone’s safe, right? And you tried to help.”

“Tried, and it wasn’t enough. It’s never been enough.” Vector hunched over the sink and squeezed his eyes shut. “Gaia, Vanilla, I can’t even look them in the eye anymore,” he whispered.

Vanilla sounded baffled. “Why shouldn’t you?”

“Because I left them!” he hissed. His voice cracked. “I left them both. I was never alone, I always had one of them, but I left both of them at one point and now — I want to fix this for them, but how can I? How can I pretend to be capable of helping them? How can I even expect them to trust me after I left them both?” He shook his head. “Y’know something? I’m never gonna forgive myself for that. Never.”

“Vector, that wasn’t your fault.”

“But it happened!” he snapped, finally looking at her with oddly blurry vision. “And now Charmy’s terrified of being alone and having nightmares every night and can’t even look at a picture of a robot without panicking — y’know the other day I saw him throwing out every toy he had with a robot on it? Every toy, every coloring book. I grabbed all of them, in case he wants them later, but he did it and he didn’t even tell me. And Espio’s fifty kinds of fucked and he won’t talk to me because he thinks I don’t notice that he’s all twitchy and jumping at every little noise, he thinks I haven’t noticed that he hasn’t been sleeping, and why would I? How could I expect him to trust me, to tell me that, when I left him to fend for himself when he needed me most?” Vector pressed the heels on his hands into his eyes. “Nil, I promised, years ago,  I promised they wouldn’t be alone and scared again like they were when I found them, I promised they’d always have someone at their back and I — I broke that promise. I failed them. I failed.”

“Vector. . .”

He couldn’t look at her. He couldn’t look at somebody else and see more disappointment. “They need me to be so much better than I am,” he whispered. “They need someone so much better than me to help them, but I’m all they’ve got, and I’m trying, and I’m still failing them, Vanilla, I just. . . keep. . .” He sighed and hung his head. He grabbed the counter for support. He felt he’d keel over if he didn’t. “I don’t know what to do.”

Vanilla was quiet for a moment. Then she crossed the short distance between them to lean against the counter next to him. She rested her hand on his.

“I don’t know, either,” she said quietly.

They stood like that for a moment.

“Cream’s having nightmares about me,” Vanilla admitted.

Vector looked at her sympathetically. “Aw, Nil, I’m so sorry.” He hated the thought of that, that sweet little rabbit waking up in tears. He hated the thought that Vanilla felt just as powerless as him.

“I don’t know where to start with that, either,” Vanilla continued. “She wakes up screaming my name, and when she sees me she just starts crying. Screaming and crying like she’s watching a monster crawl out from under her bed. She calls me for help, and when she sees me she keeps screaming for help, but. . . she doesn’t have anyone else to call.” Vanilla shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. Tears brimmed at the corners of her eyes. “You weren’t the only one who left someone alone, Vector.”

Vector hesitated, just a moment. Then he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. It was rare that physical contact went this far with them — usually just brushed hands or patted shoulders punctuated by blushes and shy giggling — but Vanilla didn’t seem surprised. She leaned against him and sighed.

“You did your best,” he murmured.

“So did you.” Vanilla chuckled sardonically. “I wish it was that easy. I wish everything cut cleanly, every wound that’s cut could be stitched up with a couple kind words and cuddles, but. . . that wasn’t a cut, this whole thing is a missing limb.” She looked up at Vector and smiled sadly. “The whole thing was such a mess. Everyone messed up, everyone got hurt because of someone else. I’m starting to think there’s really no right way to handle this.”

“But there’s definitely wrong ones.”

“Unfortunately. That’s the real trouble.” She tugged her ascot looser around her throat and sighed. “You can do everything right and still never be good, but a couple mistakes could ruin everything.” She shook her head. “I must’ve read a thousand parenting books when Cream was young, but nothing really prepares you for how precarious the balance is.”

Vector snorted. “Sure wish there was one for taking care of kids after the fuckin’ apocalypse.”

Vanilla smiled and shook her head. “I think we’re all we’ve got,” she murmured. Her hand slipped into his. She squeezed. “And. . . that’s something, at least.”

Vector smiled wearily at her. He lightly tightened his grip — gently, he knew that a light squeeze from him could snap bones. But he was careful this time.

“I’m glad you’re here, Nil.”

She smiled back at him. There were dark bags under her eyes. He hadn’t noticed that before. “I’m glad you’re here too, Vector.” She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to visit before today, it just —”

“Ah, don’t do all that,” he scoffed. “Trust me, you came right when we needed you.” He tilted his head toward the office. “We haven’t gotten out of the house since we got home. It was. . . it was good, today, before. . . everything.”

Vanilla smiled and dipped her head. “Well, this was the first time I’ve felt like I’ve actually done anything,” she admitted. “Nobody’s been too interested in flowers. It was nice to be helpful.”

“Really helpful.”

She glanced at the clock above the oven and grimaced. “I think I should be getting home soon, though,” she sighed, pushing herself up. “Cream will be waiting up.”

“Yeah, for sure. Thanks for this, seriously,” Vector added as he walked her to the door. “If there’s any way we can repay you, just let me know, alright? We owe you a big one.”

Vanilla smiled. “I could use a walk in the park, this weekend,” she said with a wave. “We’ve missed quite a few dolphin park appointments.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Then she was gone. Vector shut the door and wedged the bookshelf in front of it, as he’d become wont to do since the locks had been broken. He lumbered upstairs, avoiding the broken step. Espio was sitting on the couch, staring at an old sitcom on the TV. Or, rather, staring past it. He was looking at a spot on the wallpaper, frowning at it like it was bleeding.

“How’s Charmy?” Vector asked.

“Asleep. How’s Vanilla?”

“Tired.”

“Hm.” Espio was squeezing his wrist. Right where that horrible bruise sat, it looked like.

Vector tugged at his chain, trying to get it to settle comfortably on his neck. It had felt wrong ever since they’d returned home. “You. . . want to talk about anything?” he offered.

“No.” Espio turned off the TV and stood. “Goodnight.”

“Hey.” Vector held out a hand to block him from the hallway. Espio froze, staring at his hand like it held a knife. “Listen, how — how are you feeling?”

Espio wouldn’t look at him. “I’m tired.”

Vector sighed. “Kid, please. Talk to me.”

Espio shook his head. “I’m tired,” he repeated. His voice was weaker, this time, almost pleading. “I’m going to bed.”

Vector sighed and stepped aside. “Night, kid.”

“Goodnight.”

Chapter Text

Charmy was fast asleep.

Espio was not.

He watched the darkness and waited for something to change. His skin felt sticky. He scratched at his wrist and peeled off a bit of shed. He shouldn’t be shedding yet. Why did this keep happening?

His tail coiled around the bruise and squeezed, squeezed, squeezed.

He could hear Charmy breathing in the other bed. It sounded strained, hollow, echoey, metallic —

Keep it together keep it together keep it together.

He listened to every creak and groan of the house. He was awake. He was the last one awake. He was the last one. They were counting on him. He inhaled deeply. The air smelled like pennies.

Keep it together keep it together keep it together.

Strange mantra. He hadn’t mediated in weeks. Strange chant, strange noises, strange words. He hadn’t mediated. He didn’t feel real. He felt like an open wound, like a paper doll, like a Missing Person poster tacked up in the office. He felt taut like red thread connecting him to a thousand others. He felt like if he moved he would snap.

Something fell over outside.

It was a busy street. That happened. Things fell over.

Espio’s grip tightened on his kunai. He inhaled deeply. It tasted like salt.

Keep it together keep it together keep it together.

He couldn’t remember exhaling. He forced the air out. Too loud. He was wheezing. He’d alert those outside. He’d alert the zombots, the Zetti.

Charmy mumbled something.

Keep it together keep it together keep it together.

He was lying on top of old sheets and a purple blanket. He felt grass at his back and watched a cloud roll across the sky. He was on Angel Island. He was in bed. He was in bed. He was on the grass. He hadn’t slept. He couldn’t remember sleeping. Had he ever slept? Did open wounds need to sleep? Of course he hadn’t slept. He was the last one awake.

Keep it together keep it together keep it together.

He was whispering the words now, strung together like one long thing. It dissolved quickly into nonsense, into white noise. The words echoed into nothing, lost their meaning like warm water turns cold. Airflow, stagnation, existence. That’s how it went, wasn’t it. Everything changed into something it wasn’t, just by consequence of being. Ice melted, fire died, and he was the last one awake.

Keep it together.

The floor creaked.

There was something in the hallway.

Espio froze. He disappeared. He rolled off the bed and then under it, lying on his stomach and watching the door with wide eyes. He gripped the kunai tightly.

The door creaked open.

He couldn’t breathe. He wouldn’t. He didn’t need to sleep, he didn’t need to breathe. He just watched as something lumbered into the room — slow, clumsy, he could evade it.

It paused in the middle of the room.

“Espio?”

He was compromised.

Espio scrambled out from under the bed. Still invisible, he’d be hard to track. But his vision blurred and his head spun and he stumbled. His shoulder slammed into the open door as he reeled through. He heard the kunai clatter to the ground. No time to retrieve it.

“Espio!”

He didn’t slow as he smacked into the opposite wall. Didn’t stop as he pelted for the stairs.

“Espio, stop!”

He ran onto the stairs. He was so close to the door, so close to escaping, they were counting on him, they were —

His foot fell. The broken step. An open chasm where there should be a board. He fell. His foot fell through nothing in the open space, but he continued hurtling downward. Something wrenched, his hip, his knee, sharp, painful. Espio cried out in pain as he fell, smack sprawling onto the stairs below, his color blooming back over him like a traitorous burn, like the stars exploded across his vision. He was visible, nauseatingly opaque. His head spun.

“Shit — you alright? Are you hurt?”

Espio stared up in horror as the monster appeared at the top of the stairs. “No,” he gasped. He threw himself back, scrambling upright. “No, no!” He tried to stand again, to run for the door. He was so close, he was so close —

His leg buckled beneath him. He fell with a cry. He managed to catch himself on a shelf. A shelf where the door should be.

“No. . .”

The door was barricaded.

They’d trapped him.

“No, no!”

Espio strained against the barricade. It didn’t budge. His leg gave out again. He clawed at the bookshelf.

“No, no, no, no. . .”

He could hear the monster, every step closer and closer. Espio crumbled to his knees. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move. He curled against the shelf, pressing his forehead against the wood. He couldn’t hide anymore.

It was over.

It was all over.

“I’m sorry,” he rasped. His voice cracked. He felt tears spilling down his face.

He didn’t want to turn, to watch it approach. He didn’t want to see it happen again.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. . .”

He felt grass beneath him. He could hear screams all around. He could hear a voice trying to speak. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, the monster, the zombot, was drawing closer and he couldn’t bring himself to move. His head was full of noise and cotton. He was the last one awake.

He waited. He waited for what felt like hours. He waited for it to happen again. But it didn’t. He never felt that cold crawling across his skin, through his veins.

What he felt instead was a blanket.

Espio paused. He opened his eyes and stared at the soft fleece that fell over his shoulders — gently, tenderly, a monster didn’t move with such care. The blanket from the office couch. Who would know to get that?

Slowly, Espio turned.

To Vector.

Just Vector.

The croc was kneeling a few feet away, hands held up placatingly. He watched Espio with a wary, anxious look.

“Hey, kid,” Vector said softly. “You back with us?”

Espio stared. “Vector,” was the only response he could think of.

“Yeah, buddy, it’s me.” He shifted forward a touch. “Are you hurt? That was a pretty gnarly spill.”

Espio dropped his gaze. He stared at the floor for a long moment. Slowly, painstakingly, he turned himself to sit down. His leg ached and twinged as it moved. He winced and inhaled sharply.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. His voice cracked. He saw tears falling to the floor. He quickly wiped his face.

“That’s not what I asked,” Vector said, frowning. “How’s your leg? And your head? And. . . everything?”

“What’s going on?” Charmy was huddled against the banister halfway up the stairs, chewing on his thumb. He watched Vector and Espio with wide, anxious eyes, shining in the faint light.

Vector glanced over his shoulder. “Hey, Bitty Bee,” he said gently, “can you head back up to bed?”

“Is Espio hurt?”

“I’m fine,” Espio mumbled.

“Do you want to go wait in my room?” Vector offered.

Charmy shook his head. “It’s dark up there.”

“Charm, please.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“What? No. No, I’m not mad, can you just. . . why don’t you go watch TV for a second?”

After a moment of deliberation between the frightful scene before him and free TV time, Charmy nodded. “Okay.” He shuffled back up the stairs. After a moment, light flickered weakly from the top of the stairs, and the faint sound of an old cartoon theme song drifted down.

Espio inhaled deeply and closed his eyes as Vector turned back to him. He felt a couple more tears rolling from his eyes. “I’m fine,” he mumbled. “I did not sustain any major damage, just. . .” He couldn’t think of the next word. His thoughts felt like worms writhing from his hands. “. . . Hurts.”

Vector nodded. “Can you. . . stand up?”

“In a moment.”

“Alright, no rush, I just want to check out that leg.”

Espio shook his head. “I’m fine,” he repeated. He reached up and pulled himself up on the bookshelf. His back hurt. He hadn’t noticed that before.

Vector winced and stood, reaching out. “Geez, kid, be careful —”

“I’m going back to bed.”

“No, Espio, what happened back there?”

“I had an adverse reaction to nightmare. It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

“Es —”

Espio flinched and pushed Vector away as he tried to help. He lost his balance and fell back against the bookshelf. “I said I’m fine!” he snapped.

“Espio, nothing about this is fucking fine!”

Espio froze. Vector’s shout rang on the walls for a moment, echoing in the silence.

Vector growled in frustration and looked away. He screwed his eyes shut and rubbed his brow. “Kid, we survived a fucking nightmare, alright?”His voice was softer now. “I know it’s a mess, I know it fucked me up, and I want to help you, I swear. I’m — I’m trying right now, but I need you to try too.” He shook his head. “I want to help you. I want to help you, just — tell me, okay? Tell me how to help you, tell me what you need. Give me something to work with here.” He looked up, eyes full of desperation. “Please, just tell me.”

Espio stared at him.

It was quiet outside. The city got quiet, sometimes, rarely. Vector always said it was his favorite time of night.

Espio felt something cave inside him. His head swam. His breath hiccuped. Tears welled in his eyes.

“Oh, geez, kid, I didn’t mean —”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” Vector reached forward as Espio swayed. “I shouldn’t have yelled, I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking, I’m — I’m so sorry, kid.”

“It’s —” Espio couldn’t finish the sentence. He felt himself falling, his knees buckling, sinking towards the ground. Vector caught him, his touch blessedly muffled through the blanket. He gingerly lowered Espio to the ground, supporting him to sit upright. Even that was too much effort. Espio just slumped against Vector’s chest and sobbed again.

“Shh, it’s okay,” Vector murmured, rubbing his back through the blanket. “It’s alright, kid, you’re alright.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.” He shifted so they were both sitting more comfortably, cradling Espio like he was a child. “Shh, it’s alright. I’ve gotcha.”

Espio sniffled and hiccuped and sobbed. His lungs couldn’t seem to hold any air, like he didn’t deserve it. Vector wrapped his arms around him and stroked his head, shushing and rocking slightly. Espio closed his eyes. He felt like a child, like a sniveling toddler who couldn’t fend for himself, wrapped in a blanket, crying over nothing. Pathetic. Vector had never held him like this, like he held Charmy. But it was. . . kind of nice. After these weeks of pain and strain and numbing fear, of a mind that just couldn’t seem to register that he was safe, it was nice to just sit and let someone else cradle him for a moment.

Of course, it could have never been anyone but Vector. Espio had never trusted anyone like this before.

Never.

“Maybe it was a cult.”

Vector’s hand paused on his head. “What?”

Espio hadn’t realized he’d said that aloud. He was hardly aware that he’d thought it. “You said a few years ago that you thought I grew up in a cult,” he mumbled, wiping his eyes once more. “Maybe it was.”

“Oh. Uh. . .”

“My whole life, I’ve known what my future looked like.” He could hardly hear himself talking. He was so tired. Nothing felt real right now. For all he knew, he was still on the grass on Angel Island. Why not just talk?

“They planned out everyone’s life. And that was — sort of nice, for a bit. I never had to wonder what would happen, what I’d do. I was never supposed to leave, nobody was supposed to leave. But you were right, they were monsters. All of them. I didn’t want that. So I decided I was going to leave, and I knew that. I knew it would be hard, I knew I’d be alone, but I knew it. Then you hired me and I knew I was going to be a detective. And then the zombots broke in and everything fell apart.” He sniffled and curled up deeper into the blanket. “I can’t see my future anymore,” he mumbled. “Everything, everything we built, everything we know, all of it was ripped away in a second. And it can be again. Even without them, it all feels like it’s seconds from collapsing. Nothing. . . nothing’s real.”

Vector sighed. “Oh, kid, is that what you’ve been scared of this whole time?”

Espio shook his head. “I don’t know,” he whimpered.

“I know it was a lot,” Vector murmured. “But I promise that whatever happens, we’re going to face it toge—”

“You can’t know that!” Espio snapped, pulling away sharply. He glared up at Vector and wiped his eye. “You don’t know that! We were never together! First Charmy left, and then you, and —” His eyes screwed shut, fists curled against his temples. He caved over his knees, “and I know that was all out of our control, I know you didn’t mean to leave me, I know you were just trying to protect everyone and you did, that’s the worst part, but you can’t say we’ll face anything together! You can’t promise me anything!” Espio inhaled sharply, his lungs spasming. “And then I was alone and everyone was counting on me and when you needed it, after everything, at the last possible second, I — I gave up.”

Vector stuttered for a moment. “What?”

Espio sobbed. It wracked his body like an earthquake. He felt so weak. “I couldn’t do it,” he croaked around his tears. “We were fighting on Angel Island — you and Charmy came right towards me like you knew me, like you were looking for me — and the island kept moving, it was getting all rocked around and I fell and I — I couldn’t get up again. I heard you coming and I just let you. I just let you infect me because I couldn’t stand the idea of fighting anymore. Because I felt so powerless. I’d done everything I could and it was completely out of my hands and you were still — still gone.”

There was grass under his knees, his hands. Espio tried to push himself up. But he couldn ’t. He was exhausted. He was weak.

He was done.

It was over. It was all over.

Heavy footsteps. Metallic buzzing.

“At least it’s you.”

He felt thick, dense claws digging into the back of his neck. He cried out in pain, partly from the claws, partly from the horrifyingly icy chill that spread from them. Numbness, nothing, inching over his flesh. He was lifted from the ground, kicking instinctively and uselessly, and found himself staring at the faces he ’d loved, once. Sharp, dripping teeth. Red eyes. Twisted antennae and a missing tooth.

Everything was going dark, empty. He could feel the chill spreading over his head, closing in over his eyes.

“I’m glad it’s you.”

“You were counting on me,” Espio whispered. “And I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t carry on to the end. I couldn’t keep going. I. . . I failed you.” He bowed his head. “I’m sorry.” His voice was barely audible, barely more than a breath. But he knew Vector heard.

The silence sank into Espio, seeped into his skin, his bones. He felt like he would be crushed beneath it. Waiting for Vector’s response to the confession, his verdict, his acknowledgment of exactly how Espio had failed.

His voice was quiet when he spoke again.

“And then what happened?”

Espio paused, processing the question. He looked up. “What?”

“It didn’t end there, did it?” Vector said. He rested a hand on Espio’s back, rubbing the spot between his shoulders and his neck where the ridges didn’t reach. “What happened after that?”

Espio blinked.

There was grass at his back. He was blinking up at a sky, blue and green, spirals of energy radiating out from a starburst behind the clouds.

“I woke up.”

“I promise, I’ll be good, I won’t ever run away again, I’ll listen to everything you tell me forever and ever!”

Small hands shaking him awake, frantic buzzing.

“Please just wake up, I promise, I promise, I’ll be good, I’ll be good, I’ll be —”

Espio squinted at the silhouette taking shape above him. “. . . Charmy?” His voice rasped, slurred, but the bee perked up all the same.

“Espio?”

“Charmy was there. . .”

“Charmy.” Espio pushed himself upright, staring in dismay. Flesh and blood, nothing to show for the Virus but a couple bruises on his jaw. Tears — real tears, organic tears — brimmed in Charmy’s eyes, spilling over his freckles.

“I’m sorry, Espio, I —”

“Charmy!” Espio sat up, grabbing his face. He laughed, incredulous, nearly delirious with joy. “Charmy, Charmy!” He couldn’t think of anything else. No words mattered as much. He pressed their foreheads together as Charmy, too, began to laugh through his tears. “Charmy, Charmy, Charmy!”

Charmy wriggled out of his grip to hug him, locking his arms around his neck. Espio held him tight and startled as someone else picked them both up and squeezed and spun them around.

“Boys!”

“Vector!”

“You’re alright!” Vector crowed. His great, bellowing laugh — Gaia, Espio thought he’d never hear that again — rang across the island. “We made it, boys!”

“And. . . you were there.”

“I was.” Vector squeezed Espio’s shoulder, gently. He sighed. “Espio, watching those doors close on you. . . it was one of the worst moments of my life.”

Espio looked up, pensively studying his face. Vector wouldn’t look at him, staring a hole into the rug below.

“Knowing that I’d failed you both, leaving you like that. . .” He finally met Espio’s eyes, mournful. “Espio, I am sorry for leaving you,” he murmured, squeezing his shoulder again. Espio leaned into the touch. “Believe me, kid, it’s been eating me alive ever since, I just — I couldn’t see any other way out.”

Espio shook his head. “You protected everyone else,” he murmured. “You did what you had to do.”

“Look, I’m sorry that we weren’t all together. I will never be sorry enough for that. And, y’know, maybe you’re right, maybe I can’t promise that we always will be.” He cupped Espio’s cheek and tilted his head up to look at him again. “But I can promise that all three of us will always fight like hell to find each other again, yeah? I think we’ve proven that much.”

Espio dropped his gaze again, though he still rested his head against Vector’s hand. “I gave up at the end.”

“After facing a goddamn Zetti. By yourself.”

“I stopped you from going back for Charmy.”

“Yeah, and you were right. If I’d gone back, I wouldn’t have been able to watch your back for as long as I did.”

Espio shook his head. “I said I’d get him, if I’d gotten him —”

“Don’t.”

“If I hadn’t stopped you from going back —”

“Geez, kid,” Vector sighed. He wiped a tear from Espio’s face. “I never should’ve put you in that position. I should’ve been thinking, taking the lead. I should’ve been the one telling you to pack up to the shuttle.”

Espio shook his head. “You wouldn’t be you if you had,” he mumbled. “And I wouldn’t be me if I hadn’t.” He sniffled and wiped his face. “I know my role here, I know I’m the logical one. I keep it together when everything else falls apart. And I’ve been trying to, I swear I have, I —” He pulled away from Vector and buried his face in the blanket. “I’m sorry, I’m — Gaia, I’m supposed to be better than this,” he whimpered.

“Oh, Es. . .”

Espio shook his head, his face still hidden in the blanket. “I just keep. . . I just keep failing you.”

“Look at me.” Vector gently took Espio’s face in his hands, undeterred by the tears, and turned him to face him. “I’m right here, Espio,” he said firmly. “Listen, you hear that annoying-ass song? Charmy’s right upstairs. We’re here, Es.” He wiped a couple tears from Espio’s face. “Everyone’s okay. You didn’t fail anyone, kid. So what if you got overwhelmed at the end of it? It all worked out. See? I’m right here. You did it.” Vector smiled softly at him. “Honestly, I’m — I’m so proud of you, Espio.”

Espio blinked up at him, his vision blurry through the tears. He sank into Vector’s touch. “You are?”

“I am. I always have been, kid. I don’t need you to be anything other than you are, you don’t need to be better than anything.” He chuckled. “I’ve always been proud of you, kid. Just like this.”

Espio stared at him. He. . . couldn’t remember anyone telling him that before. It didn’t make sense. Proud of him, crying on the floor as he cracked under pressure? Proud of him after he’d admitted to surrendering when they needed him? Proud of him — just him? When he’d done nothing to deserve it? It seemed impossible.

But Vector didn’t lie about things like that. So it must be true.

Espio couldn’t handle it. It felt like he’d been trying to swim through sand, trying to understand each grain as it fell, and then been pulled into sunlight for the first time in days. He felt blinded and hot. He didn’t even know how to look at the open air anymore. His breath hiccuped. He tried to inhale, but it was like his lungs simply couldn’t hold the air, and he caved as he sobbed again. He was crumpling, brittle. Tears rolled down his face, over Vector’s claws, as he found himself finally, finally, falling apart, on the same spot where he’d shown himself years ago.

Now, as then, Vector stayed with him.

Vector pulled him close, gently, and rubbed his back again. Espio curled up under the blanket, curled up in Vector’s embrace, and muffled his sobs in the blanket.

“We’re here, Es.” Vector murmured. “Shh, shh, it’s okay. I’m here, kid, I’m right here. I’ve gotcha.”

Espio couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried like that. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. He wondered if he was relearning how to, now. That would explain how miserable it felt — clumsy and painful. He worried he would be in that moment forever, like the tears would never stop. But, mercifully, they did. He felt drained, afterwards. But he was quiet. He did, somehow, feel better.

“Everything is okay, alright?” Vector promised. “You’re okay. We’re all okay.”

Espio rested his head against Vector’s shoulder and closed his eyes with a heavy exhale. “Okay,” he whispered. The weight of his exhaustion was closing in over him, pulling him under like a riptide.

But that was alright for now. Vector was with him.

Vector sighed in relief. He adjusted the blanket again. “Whaddya think? Wanna try and get some sleep?”

“Mhm.” He knew on some level that he should be standing up, walking back upstairs. But his body didn’t move. His limbs didn’t seem to want to comply. He felt he was buried in warm sand.

That was fine. Vector was with him.

Everything was disappearing. But he could feel Vector’s arms around him, feel himself being lifted from the floor. Clumsily, half-blind, Espio grabbed Vector’s arm.

“Don’t leave,” he whispered. “Please?”

Vector asked something else. Espio couldn’t hear it. He just hummed and fell back into that inky void that had been clawing at him for days.

But that was fine.

Vector was with him.

Vector mounted the stairs — careful with his sleeping cargo — to see Charmy. The bee was curled up on the couch, chewing on his thumb, and staring at Vector. His cartoons were still running, bright colors and soft corners chirping into the dark.

“What happened to Espio?” Charmy whispered.

“He’s just tired,” Vector explained softly. “He’s going to stay with you and me in my room tonight, alright? That sound okay?”

Charmy nodded and turned off the TV. He buzzed to Espio, hovering around him with a look of concern twisting his round face.

“Was he crying?”

“A. . . a little, yeah.”

“But he never cries!”

“He’s allowed to cry, kid.”

“I know, I just mean — is he okay? Was he hurt or something?”

Vector sighed as he pushed his door open. “He’s just. . . feelin’ bad about some stuff that he shouldn’t feel bad about.” He gently laid Espio on the bed, then climbed in himself. “He’s been worn out. We’re all just a little tired, is all. He’s okay.”

“Oh.”

Vector groaned as he fell on his back, looking up at the ceiling. Charmy curled up on his chest, and Vector rested a hand on his back to keep him from slipping off. Espio hadn’t stirred. Lying on his side, breathing in and out slowly, steadily. His looked calm — really calm — for the first time in weeks.

Vector carefully pulled his large blanket up, over all three of them. He tucked it around Espio, then ensured Charmy was covered before he laid back again. He sighed heavily and closed his eyes.

“Hey, Vector?”

Vector fought another sigh. “Yeah, Charm?”

“What was Espio feeling bad about?”

“That’s his business, bud.”

“Was it because I was all stupid earlier?”

“Wh —?” Vector startled at that. “What are you talking about?”

“Earlier,” Charmy mumbled. “When I just started freakin’ out over nothing. He seemed scared. Did I scare him?”

“Buddy, that’s not your fault,” Vector said softly, rubbing his back. “You went through something really scary. You might get scared of stuff for a bit. That’s okay.”

Charmy sniffled. “The scary thing was my fault too, anyways,” he muttered resentfully. Vector felt him curl up tighter on his chest.

“Charmy, it wasn’t your fault that I was turned. You couldn’t help it.”

Charmy sniffled. “I’m. . . I’m sorry.”

Vector carefully readjusted his hand to stroke Charmy’s curls. “Buddy, it’s okay,” he said softly.

Charmy shook his head, snuggling against him. “I shouldn’t’ve left,” he whimpered. “I should’ve listened to you.”

“I mean. . .” Vector sighed and shrugged. “Yeah. Yeah, you should have. But I know you were just trying to help, Bitty Bee. You were trying to be brave.”

“But I wasn’t brave. I was just stupid.”

“You’re not stupid.” Vector lightly stroked his head with one thumb, careful of his delicate antennae. “Everybody makes mistakes,” he murmured. “I know I have. I did, during the Virus. So did Espio. So did you. It’s okay. But. . . you made a mistake while trying to help someone else, y’know? That’s better than making a mistake being selfish, I think.”

Charmy said nothing. He pulled one of Vector’s huge hands onto his lap and began fidgeting with it. He was still so, so small. He could still fit in one of Vector’s hands. He’d been so small, out there all alone.

“Do you still want me?” he whispered.

Vector froze. “Wh—?” He sat up and set Charmy on his knee. Charmy wouldn’t look at him. Just hung his head as tears rolled down his cheeks. “Charm, look at me, c’mere.” Charmy met his gaze with helpless despair. Vector carefully brushed away a tear with his knuckle, careful to keep his claws clear of his face.

“Yes,” he said, putting as much conviction behind the word as he could. “Yes, Charmy, I still want you. Nothing — nothing — is ever going to change that, d’ya hear me?”

Charmy’s chin trembled. “Never?”

“Never ever.”

“Never ever in a million years?”

“Never ever in a hundred billion years,” Vector vowed, poking Charmy’s side gently until he was giggling through his tears. “We’re in this for life now, Bitty Bee.”

Charmy smiled hopefully up at him. “Promise?”

“I promise.”

He nodded and snuggled against his side again. “Okay.”

Vector picked him up and laid back again, rubbing his back.

“I love you, kid.”

It was out before he could question it, before he could realize he’d said it. He’d never said it before, not to his boys.

Why the hell hadn’t he said it before?

Charmy was quiet for a moment. “You do?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“Oh. Okay.” He fell silent again. Vector was just wondering if he’d finally fallen asleep when he drowsily hummed, “I love you, too.”

Vector glanced at Espio. He was still fast asleep. He wanted to tell him, too.

But it could wait until morning.

Espio woke up and felt like lead. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept, or by consequence the last time he’d woken up. It felt like learning to walk for the first time. He stumbled into consciousness, then tripped and fell asleep again. A sound would prod at him, and he’d stagger to blink a few times and fumble for the book on his nightstand only to realize there was none and collapse into sleep again.

It took about an hour and a half after his first awakening before he was able to sit up or properly absorb his surroundings.

He was in Vector’s enormous bed, tangled in his heavy blankets. The light through the window was syrupy and soft, the time indiscernible. The room was empty, but the door open. He could hear voices downstairs, dishes clinking in the kitchen. His mouth tasted like sleep. His head felt sticky. Slowly, he pushed himself up. It took another few minutes before he was able to stand. He picked up the couch blanket from the bed as he did. Needed to return it to the office.

He flinched and leaned against the wall as he walked. His leg hurt. He was able to walk on it after a moment, but heavily favored the other. Slowly, clinging to the railing, he made his way downstairs, carefully avoiding the broken step.

He could hear noise in the kitchen, water running and music and Charmy rapping along to one of Vector’s favorite old songs that played from the radio.

“. . . Mad question askin’ ,blunt passin’, music blastin’, but I just can’t quit, ‘cause one of these honeys —”

“You cannot be singin’ this shit, Bitty Bee,” Vector sighed, clearly annoyed.

“But you’re the one who always plays it!” Charmy protested. “Why can’t I sing it?”

“Kids your age shouldn’t be hearin’ about this kinda stuff.”

“But I do.”

“Well, you’re not supposed to. Grown-ups are supposed to make sure you don’t hear about a lot of it.”

“So you don’t want me to sing it so people don’t know you’re bad at your job?”

“For fuck’s sake —”

“Isn’t that a grown-up word too?”

“Well —”

“Can I sing when there’s nobody around to judge you for not doing your job?”

Vector sighed heavily. “Gaia — fine, whatever.”

Espio, groggy as he was, felt a weak smile tugging at his lips. He hadn’t heard Charmy talk this much since they’d returned home. He’d almost worried he’d never argue again.

Charmy resumed his rapping with gusto. “I love it when you call me Big Poppa! Throw ya hands in the ay-ah, if you’s a true play-ah.”

Espio limped towards the kitchen, but he stopped and buckled against the couch, hissing in pain as his leg gave out under him.

Charmy’s rapping immediately stopped.

“Espio!” he shouted, zipping out of the kitchen and barreling directly into Espio’s chest. He fell back onto the couch with a wheeze. “Sorry,” Charmy said, though he showed no intention of moving as he sat up on Espio’s chest with a grin. “Guess what? Vector’s makin’ pancakes, for dinner!”

“Dinner?” Espio echoed, his voice raspy from sleep and from having a six-year-old crushing all the air out of his lungs. “What time is it?”

“Like, five o’clock. You’ve been sleeping aaaaaalllllll day, but Vector said to leave you alone because you were, um, really upset last night.” He finally shifted off of Espio and instead just perched on the side of the couch, kicking his legs. “He said you felt really bad for some stuff you shouldn’t feel bad for, and that you were really stressed out, and I said, ‘Why does that mean he gets to sleep all day?’ And then he, um, he said, ‘Cause he hasn’t slept in days is why,’ and then I said, ‘Oh, yeah, he’s been pretending this whole time, huh?’ and then he said, ‘You want breakfast?’ and then I said, ‘Can we have pancakes?’ and then he said, ‘We don’t have the stuff yet,’ and then I said —”

Espio rested a hand on Charmy’s head to silence him. “Good morning to you too,” he mumbled, rubbing his brow.

“I just told you, it’s dinner time, weren’t you listening?”

“Mhm.” Espio sat up and looked more closely around the office. Most of the paperwork on the desk sat undisturbed. The bookshelf was still wedged in front of the door, and the phone had been removed from its cradle, resting on the desk. “Are we not taking calls?” he asked.

“Not today,” Vector replied as he trotted from the kitchen. “Afternoon, by the way. You feelin’ any better?”

Espio hummed and nodded. “A bit,” he yawned. He wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and leaned back. Charmy burrowed under the blanket and poked his head up just under Espio’s chin. Espio just snorted and rested his chin on his head. “Did I miss anything?”

“We got a new message from what I assume is Mighty,” Vector informed him, nodding to the computer on the desk. “New message popped up that said, ‘Found Ray, both safe — M.’”

Espio shook his head. “I’m gonna murder him,” he mumbled into Charmy’s hair.

Vector snorted. “Well, at least it’s something.”

“Does that have something to do with the agency being closed?”

“No, I just decided we’re not taking any more cases for a minute,” Vector informed him, sitting on the opposite end of the couch. “Not until we make more of a dent in the bunch we’ve already got.”

Charmy tilted his head. “We can do that? Just not take work if we have too much?”

“Well, yeah. Most places do, but we’ve never had enough work to, uh. . . warrant that before.”

“Whoa.”

“Yeah.” Vector crossed his arms and leaned back with a sigh and a proud smile. “Anyways, I’ve got a new idea.”

“Oh, boy,” Espio muttered. Charmy giggled.

“Oh, stuff it. Listen, Amy’s throwing a party tonight — victory celebration, I guess. I told her we’d try to make it, but no promises. We can see how we’re all feelin’ in a couple hours. No pressure to go or not. Then, in a day or two, we’re takin’ a road trip.”

“Road trip?” Espio and Charmy voiced their confusion in unison.

Vector nodded once. “It’s like you said, Es,” he explained. “Most cases we got, we’re pretty sure they’re not in Seaside City anymore, right? So, we need to go elsewhere to find ‘em. Why not just make a trip of it? We’ll drive, see the countryside, see the world we’ve saved a few times now. Visit some people, solve some cases, camp, rest up a bit. Y’know, just. . .” He shrugged and waved his hand at the door. “Get away from all this mess for a minute, huh?”

Espio frowned. “What about the Rabbits?”

Vector tensed. “Well, they — what about them, first?”

Espio gave him an exasperated look.

Vector rolled his eyes. “Oh, shut up.”

“You asked —”

“I already called Vanilla and pitched the idea to her. She likes the thought of tagging along for a little while. She thinks it’d be good for Cream to have a little low-risk adventure, seeing things growing again. So, y’know, they probably won’t be there the whole time, but they’re gonna talk about it tonight and see if they want to tag along.”

“It would be so fun if Cream’s there!” Charmy cheered.

Espio hummed thoughtfully. He’d fought to get back to this place. All through the Virus, he’d dreamed of returning home, returning here. But it was a wreck. Not just inside the agency — that was actually looking worlds better, thanks to Vanilla and Cream — but the entire city. He had felt powerless here for days now. Maybe they needed to solve a few cases. Maybe they needed to drive somewhere far away and find someone. Maybe they needed to see the rest of the world recovering, needed to help someone who needed it, and they would remember that it was all over.

Maybe Espio would remember that it was all over.

That he was really safe.

Maybe camping out wouldn’t be too bad, too. He hadn’t sat in a tree in weeks. He had hardly seen the sky. He thought about campfires and sleeping in the branches of a tree with Vector and Charmy just below him. He thought about mountains and lakes and long, quiet roads with familiar music on the speakers.

It didn’t sound too bad.

Slowly, Espio nodded. “I don’t think that sounds like a horrible idea,” he said. “It could be very. . . rejuvenating.”

Charmy grinned up at him. “I missed your stupid big words,” he mumbled, snuggling against him.

Espio pulled the blanket over Charmy’s head, playfully mussing his hair. “They’re not stupid, they’re intellectual.”

“See, like that!” Charmy giggled. “Big stupid word for smart!”

Espio rolled his eyes and pushed the squirming bee off of him. “I’m not going to engage in such a circuitous debate with an inferior opponent.”

“Big, stupid words!” Charmy jeered from under the blanket.

“Alright, boys,” Vector chuckled, pushing himself off the couch, “I’ll get those pancakes started, you two sort this out like mature adults.”

“Oh, yeah!” Charmy gasped, squirming out from under the blanket, “Espio, c’mere!” He grabbed the chameleon’s arm and pulled him off the couch. Espio winced as his leg gave under his weight.

“Oh, geez,” Vector muttered, reaching out to catch him before he fell. “That’s hurt pretty bad, huh?”

“No, honestly, it’s nothing severe,” Espio assured him. He tested it out and slowly placed more weight on it. “I’ll be limping for a bit, but. . . I think resting on the drive is going to do me good.”

Vector beamed at him. He didn’t let go of Espio’s arm as he limped into the kitchen behind Charmy. Finally, Espio collapsed into his chair with a huff.

Vector patted his back as he passed behind his chair. “I love ya, kid.”

Espio blinked. He turned to look at him in surprise, but Vector was already at the counter his back turned.

“Oh. Okay.”

Vector gave him a sidelong smile. Espio nodded and finally turned his attention to the table.

On the table, between his and Charmy’s seats, was the chess board. All the pieces lined up precisely, facing the battleground in the middle. Some were chipped, and one black bishop had been replaced by a marker cap, but other than that, wholly intact.

Espio stared at it. It felt, somehow, so foreign, like he was seeing it for the first time. And, looking at the chips and the replacements, maybe he was. But he felt something settling in his chest as he studied it. Familiar castles in the wreckage. It was different, it had been ripped apart and repaired, and here it was again, ready for those fantastical tales.

Charmy sat across from him, hands folded, watching him expectantly. He nudged the board closer to Espio, rattling the pieces a bit.

“White goes first,” he announced. “Remember?”

Espio looked at the board. He tilted his head. “White goes first?”

“Uh huh.”

Espio shifted his scales, from purple to a soft grey-white, the exact same shade as the plastic pieces before him. “Well, lucky for me then.”

Charmy giggled, pressing his hands over his mouth as his eyes shone with glee.

“I think. . . my knight is going to get ambitious. He’ll jump over the pawn and straight to the battlefield.” As he set down his piece, he leaned back in his chair and raised his voice slightly, just so Vector could hear him clearly over the radio.

“I love you, too.”

He very pointedly didn’t look at him. He kept his focus entirely on the chessboard as his frill flushed red.

Espio was still scared. Nothing was fixed, he knew that. Things were just the same as they’d been twelve hours ago. But now there was a bee across from him at the dinner table and a crocodile flipping through radio stations on the counter and a chess board on the table. It still felt precarious. It felt precious. But they were all there now. By consequence of being, they had become something that they hadn't been before. Something that had seemed so far-fetched to a kid alone on the streets. Something he never could’ve seen in his future. A detective agency, a gaggle of weird friends, of brothers, or of something else entirely. Three lonely people who had found each other in the wide, dangerous world, and would continue finding each other, again and again and again.

Maybe that made them a family. Or maybe there was another word for it.

They’d know once they had a thesaurus.