Star-crossed Lovers

Chapter 10 – Orderly Games

Vector, Espio, and Charmy made it home in only a few minutes. Something that was convenient about the Chaotix' home was that it was close to many of their friends' home. When they went in through the door, Charmy headed into his room while Espio and Vector stayed behind to talk to each other.

"So are you really serious about making us Team Chaotix again?"

"Of course I'm serious. We've had so many good times while we were a team and did missions together. We have the resources, so we can definitely make that happen again."

"We may have the resources, Espio. But what do you plan on doing in order to get the missions coming again. We've been away from the detective stuff for so long, I'm pretty sure everyone has forgotten about us already."

"We're just going to have to figure out a way to advertise our detective agency again. Maybe you can ask some of your previous clients to recommend us to some of their friends."

"I don't know. Not a lot of people are going to really be wanting a detective agency since everything's been so quiet lately."

"Well, we aren't going to get anywhere if we don't try something and just give up. There has to be someone out there who has some kind of issue that we can look into. It probably won't be big or anything, but it'll get us off of our feet or something."

Vector sighed, but ended up smiling afterwards. "I guess you're right, Espio. I'll call Katrina and some of my other colleagues tomorrow morning and ask them to help us out."

"Thanks, Vector." Espio stood on his toes and gave Vector a short kiss on the lips. Vector blushed and ducked down to give Espio another kiss.

"Until then, we still have a couple of hours left of today. What do you want to do?"

"I don't really know. We can't really do anything with the little time that we have in the day. Do you have any ideas of your own?"

Vector thought about it for a second and then said, "Maybe we can do something a little fun before we head to bed."

"What are you suggesting?"

Vector smiled and said, "Can you grab the deck of cards in the cupboard and bring them into my office?"

Espio nodded and went over to one of the cabinets and tried to get up to reach it. It was high up on the wall, and Espio was pretty sure that there was no way that he could get up to it. Embarrassed, Espio went into Vector's office empty-handed. Vector gave Espio a confused look and asked, "Do you not know where the cards are?"

"I do know where they are. I just… can't exactly reach them. I don't even know why you have a cabinet that's up so high."

Vector stepped out of the office and checked out the aforementioned cabinet. He looked at how high the cabinet was and then looked back to see how short Espio was. This made Vector chuckle when he noticed that Espio would never be able to reach that cabinet at his height. "I guess I kind of figured you would have hit your growth spurt in the past few years while you were with us. I guess I was wrong."

"My brother tells me that my family is made up of tall people. He was tall and somehow I managed to avoid the gene for good height. Dating someone who is practically twice my height isn't going to be that easy for me."

"Yes. But that means I get to do things like… this." Vector then grabbed Espio from his armpits and began to raise him up, causing a slight gasp to escape from the sudden movement. Vector brought Espio close enough to the cupboard so that he could open it and grab the cards that were stored inside.

When he got them, he asked Vector to lower him. Vector did so and kissed Espio on the lips on the way down. "You're really cute when you're in my arms."

Espio blushed madly, his muzzle turning a deep pink color. "Heh, thanks. Can you put me on the ground now?"

"Sure." Vector gently put Espio on the ground. "Alright, so let's bring these cards into my office."

The two of them entered the office while Espio tried to get the cards out of the case that they're in. When he did, he sat on the ground across from Vector and placed the cards in between the two of them. "I don't exactly get it, Vector. I'm curious as to what game you would be so excited to play."

"You'll see." Vector grabbed the deck of cards and began to shuffle them in the professional casino style. "This game is called Card Dares. It's normally played with an entire party of people, but we can play it with just two people. All you do is you grab one card from the deck in the center, and that card will tell you what dare you have to do."

"How will I know what I have to do from just some number?"

"I'm getting to that. Face cards and Aces mean that your turn is skipped and you don't have to do a dare. 2 through 6 cards allow me to choose what you have to do. 7 through 10 cards have specific purposes. We'll just wait till we get one of those to explain what each of those do."

"Alright."

"Rookie starts it, then."

Espio grabbed the card at the top of the deck. He flipped it up to himself, smiled, and then showed it to Vector. It turned out to be an Ace. "It looks like the master is going to start this one."

Vector sighed but smiled. "Yeah, I guess you're right." Vector drew a card and unluckily drew a 2. "Well… what do you want me to do?"

"Hm… I'm not fond of giving you a dare, but it looks like I'm going to have to. I dare you to…" Espio looked outside of the room to get some ideas. He spotted Charmy who was entering the kitchen to get a snack and got a good idea for a good dare. "I dare you to go up to Charmy and tell him to go to his room for no reason."

Espio began chuckling to himself, which gave Vector the indication that he was actually serious. 'He can do so many things on missions, but when it comes to dares, he's not exactly daring,' Vector thought to himself. "Alright, Espio. I'm almost reluctant to do this dare, but I guess I have to do it."

Espio continued to laugh silently as Vector exited the office. Vector went up to Charmy and said, "Hey Charmy, can you go to your room?"

"Yeah, I was going there anyways. Goodnight, Vector." Charmy then flew over to his room and closed the door. Vector returned to the office and went back his original sitting place.

"I think he took it pretty hard," Vector said, resisting the urge to laugh.

"I would've done it with a little more emotion that you did, but you did enough to complete your dare. I guess it's my turn again."

Espio drew a King, which excused him from yet another dare. Vector sighed and drew 5, which meant that Espio would have his way with him again. They continued to do this for a good hour. Espio got pretty lucky for a little while with his face cards, but eventually he ended up getting several number cards. Though, since Espio kept throwing petty dares, Vector decided to take it easy on his and did some pretty pathetic dares as well.

When the clock struck 11:00, the two of them were pretty worn out from the day and decided that it was time to go to bed. Espio put away the deck of cards, except he put it into a drawer that was at an easy reach rather than putting it in some impossible-to-reach cupboard. Afterwards, Espio instinctively went to his room to go to bed, but Vector decided to stop him before he could enter.

"Why don't you spend the night with me tonight, Espio?"

"You really want me to sleep in the same bed as you, Vector? Doesn't that make you uncomfortable?"

"I wouldn't have asked you if it made me uncomfortable."

"Yes, but what if Charmy comes in on us. We promised him that we wouldn't do anything around him that he might consider to be weird."

"Well… he's going to have just deal with it, then. Besides, why would he walk in on us in the middle of the night? It's not like he's stalking me or anything."

"I guess you're right."

"You worry too much, Espio. I love you, and I think that's all that should matter, right now. Don't you agree?"

"Yeah, I agree. Let's go." Espio closed his door and then followed Vector to his bedroom. Vector's room was a bit of a mess, but it didn't bother Espio too much. Vector took of his shoes and socks, and Espio did the same. He left his gloves and wrist bracelets on though, because he never seems to want to take those off.

Vector then went the bed and scooted over to leave room for Espio to join him. Espio got into the bed as well and shut off the lamp on the nearby table, leaving the room to be only lit by the moonlight outside. Espio felt an arm cross over him, which made him nice and comfortable. He knew that this would be a nice night.

The next morning, Espio woke up early as he normally does. But he woke up to somebody that he didn't expect to be in their room. Charmy was flying over the bedside and noticed when Espio began to open his eyes. "I was going to ask you guys to play with me, but this is just too weird."

Espio chuckled to himself. "Come on, Charmy. Nothing is going to be different now that Vector and I are in a relationship." Espio then got out of bed, trying not to wake up his deep-sleeping partner. He put his shoes and socks back on and turned to face Charmy again. "What do you want to do?"

"I don't know. The sun hasn't gone up yet, so we can't really do anything right now."

Espio turned around to look at Vector's digital clock and noticed that it was only 5:30 in the morning. "Charmy, a growing child should have more sleep than what you're getting right now. It's 5:30. Try to sleep in more."

"Why? You were going to wake up right now anyways."

"I'm older, and I don't need as much sleep. Get at least 1 more hours of sleep and I'll treat you to something nice. I promise."

"Really? What is it?"

"I won't tell you until you get some more sleep, alright."

Charmy sighed. "Fine, Espio. I hope it's something really special!" Charmy then went out of the room, making everything silent again.

Espio turned around to notice that Vector was sitting up in his bed, smiling at him. "I'm sorry Vector. Charmy and I must have wakened you up."

"Don't worry about it, Espio. It was actually kind of nice to see you negotiate with Charmy like that. I've been trying to get that kid to wake up later for ages."

Espio went over to the bed and sat down next to Vector. "I guess you just need the proper touch with a kid like that. He's smart, so you can't play games with him."

"Yeah, almost too smart."

"Well, he's lived here for quite a long time, and he's learned from the best."

"Who, you?"

Espio chuckled a little and gave Vector a light kiss on the cheek. "As flattering as that it, I was actually talking about you."

"What could he possibly learn from me?"

"He's learned your stubbornness pretty well."

Vector laughed. "How is that a good thing?"

"It is a little. When people negotiate with him on missions, he doesn't give in to ridiculous requests."

"Yes, but put a video game in front of him and he'll cave."

"I guess that's true." Espio got off of the bed and headed for the door. "I'm going to head to the supermarket. I know you're tired, but maybe you can call Katrina and talk about the Chaotix thing."

"Yeah, I'll be sure to do that. Be back soon. I don't want to be home alone when Charmy wakes up."

Espio chuckled to himself as he exited the home. When Espio left, Vector slowly got up from his bed and went to the phone. "Time to make a team again."