Waffles

Charmy awoke to find that he was sitting upwards, head leaning against the door.

He totally forgot why exactly, but he had a feeling something was wrong. He mostly ignored that feeling until he came into the kitchen.

Espio was sitting at the table across from Vector, both of them looking away from each other with a competitive anger. Vector trying obviously very hard to focus on his computer work (which was probably only some digital card game). Espio, however, was just glaring out of the window with an intensity.

Charmy then realized why he had waken up the way he had.

Espio was first to look his way. "Good morning, Charmy," but that was all he said before he accidentally glanced at Vector and quickly stared out at the window.

"Uh…good morning?" He wasn't exactly sure how to feel about the tension in the room. Or how to describe it.

He quickly decided to devise a plan.

He hovered in front of Vector's snout, purposely getting too close for the fun of it. "Hey Vectorrr, will you pleasssseee make some waffles for breakfast?"

Vector grumbled out at him," You know we don't have the ingredients for that. Go make yourself the boxed kind."

"Aww, but we always have that!"

Vector glanced Espio's way with an annoyed look in his eyes. "Well right now we can't afford that kinda stuff regularly."

Espio glared back up at Vector. "We don't want to get too spoiled anyway, Vector."

It was just as he had thought. They had gotten in a fight over something last night, like in those old boring sitcoms and stuff. Or at least that was Charmy's conclusion on the matter.

So waffles would have to be the answer.

"Okayyy, whatever. I'll make some dumb 'ol boxed waffles."

"Remember not to put them in the microwave," Espio commented.

"Right. Right. 'Cause they go kaboom!"

"No. Because the packaging says not to."

"Whyyy?"

"Because that's what it says."

Charmy dropped the subject and tried to think of a way to get them to "make-up". Or was it 'make-out'? He always confused the two.

"Vector! Can you, uh, plug in the microwave pleassseee?"

Vector looked up from his computer work. "Why? You always do it yourself."

"Not today!"

Vector grumbled and decided he might as well.

Charmy opened the freezer and pretended to look through it. "Espio, where are the waffles?"

"Where you left them."

Charmy tried to hide the fact that he was looking right at them.

"They're not there!"

Espio sighed and went over to him. "Where? Look! They're right here!"

"Uh, oops…look at that!" He pointed quickly in Vector's direction.

For a moment, their eyes met.

At the same moment, they hastily sat down back at their seats at the table.

Charmy's determination grew stronger.

He made the fastest waffles he'd ever made before- and took his seat in between the other two chairs.

"Vector!" He shouted suddenly, making sure to pretend like he was still eating and that this was just a completely un-set-up idea. "Don't you want to have a staring contest with me and Espio?!"

"Uh…no. You can't even have a three-way staring contest. 'less you're cross-eyed."

"Or a chameleon," Charmy chimed.

Espio rolled his eyes at him.

"Either way, Charmy."

"Wellll, why don't you just have a staring contest with Espio?"

"Why do you care so much?"

"Because everyone should have eye contact sometimes!"

Vector and Espio both looked up from their separate ways, but rather than at each other they looked at Charmy.

"Where did you get that from, Charmy?" Espio asked.

"I made it up just now!" He took another forkful of waffle and wondered how things would ensue.

"Oh…I see."

"What, uh, makesya think no one's lookin' at each other?" Vector asked.

Charmy laughed absentmindedly. "You are so obviously avoiding each other. Don't know why…"

Vector gave a sideways glance to the spy, but didn't say a word to him. "Oh, really?"

Espio looked directly at Vector, not caring that his gaze was avoided. "Why is that, Vector?"

Vector coughed, painfully hoping to change subjects. "Oh, gee, I've gotta be goin' out advetisin' an all…"

"Advertising? Will you happen to pick up that paycheck of yours today, then?"

"I told you. Not yet. Stop being so mad 'bout things you shouldn't!"

"I can't just ignore the fact that you deliberately tried to hide it! That I don't even know who the heck the employers are, or why they chose you so suddenly! Why-"

"Well why don't you shut up and listen, jerk? I only tried to explain and you went and said 'it's so late' and all!"

"Maybe that's because I was tired of hearing you make stupid excuses and choices!"

Charmy began to play with the syrup on his plate, seriously wondering if ever finding out why would be worth it.

It seemed Vector got a new job? That looked fine enough to him! Maybe it would be something cool like a police, or a race car driver, or an ice cream shop owner, or an elephant-trainer. Or a pilot. Or a zookeeper. Or a dog food taster. Or…

While he had been pondering ideas for this new job, he realized that the two had finally stopped arguing and were staring at each other in some kind of strange tension he had never really felt before.

It had to be the strangest morning ever.

"Alright, fine. I do understand, I guess," Vector finally spoke. "I swear next time I'll tell ya first…I'm really sorry."

"It's- it's okay. I suppose I can see where you're coming from, too."

"Yay! Are we done with making-out now?" Charmy asked eagerly.

"It-it's making up, Charmy," Espio replied.

"Whatever. Are you done?

"Um, yeah, s'pose so," Vector said.

"So are you a police now, Vector?"

"No…"

"He's a detective for his own show," Espio explained. "I still don't know why they chose him, but…I'm sure the money will make up for it."

"For a show?! A show? CAN I BE ON IT?!"

"Uh, no. Unfortunately this is a no-guest type of thing."

"But whyyyy?"

"Don't know. Not the director."

"Oh."

Espio laughed lightly, earning two glances from the others. "What?"

"What's so funny?" Vector demanded.

"That explains a lot, now that I think about it. You didn't get a tattoo for random reasons?"

"I had to have somethin' new an' stylish to show!"

"Oh, so I see."

"I want one!" Charmy squealed.

"No," Espio replied. "Vector, you know you better tell them that if they ever want another detective-"

And just like that, Vector and Espio went back to talking like no tomorrow.

At least they weren't fighting. But maybe that wasn't much better.

Charmy used his fork to draw in the syrup again. "I guess making waffles can't help you much once you solve the problem," he mumbled to himself.

At least they were all still together, he supposed.

A/N: Set somewhere in the Boom universe, I guess, since Vector got employed as a show-detective.