We are silent so far, advancing through the secret passages. They are vent like, all made of metal, with little lighting, but still enough to see. Having my holo pendant on my hand is also helping me. With each step, we make quite a bit of noise, but it shouldn't become an issue. Right now, the screen had a radar system, sending an expanding circle every few seconds, to detect any systems like heat sensors or motion sensors. I eventually found one, a laser sensor, tooooo old school. It will be a piece of cake.
I stop and work on the system, hacking it. But then, I feel something... touching my ass. The second that happened, he jumped away, hitting his head on the low roof. I honestly should be worried for all the noise he produced on that moment, but my anger for letting him touch me and the pleasure of seeing him get hurt dominates my thoughts.
"Shit." He says.
"You deserve that." I say angry. Seriously, you would think, for how meek and awkward he present himself, that he wouldn't do something like this. But here he was. "Keep your hands to yourself you pervert." I snap at him. And it seems it worked, because for the time I spent hacking the system and more, he does as told. I also take some time to hack the cameras on the next room. This will make the cameras send recordings instead of live. That should avoid us a lot of trouble, but there are still out there, so we can't be at ease.
We got to the next room the library. It is strangely spotless, but that must be thanks to his servants and not because the owner is an avid reader.
I go to the books and start pulling them. For now, I ignore foxy over there. Like, I know he previously touched my butt, but it was different. It was not enjoyable. But soon, I pull the book that is the right one. And the entire books shelf slides to the side, revealing a vault.
Ha! This guy is really making everything easy. It is an entire electric lock, with bottoms for a password, and above them, the words 'closed' in red. But it literally takes me ten seconds to use my pendant and crack it open. The absurd vault opened, the door, bigger than the fox, opened, leading to a, in comparison, small room, filled to the brim with gold and stuff. I really wished I had some bag for loot, but I must remember my priorities. Find the eggs and leave. I look again at the mountains of gold, literally of my height. This... might take a while.
So, I got my hands into work, searching every bit of the metal box to find the treasure. Just as I expected, the Babylon eggs are hard to find on this mountain.
"Hey, are we... looking for something in particular?" Well, no shit Sherlock. Why do you think I am not just taking every bit of gold and fill my bra or something? Still, I control my reaction a bit.
"Why do you care?" I say, and he should understand that I don't want to play around.
"I just wanna make myself useful. And not be bored." He says. I don't even turn around again to answer.
"Then why did you even came to this party?" Was my next question.
"I told you. I was babysitting."
"Yeah. And doing a lousy job. Aren't you going to get in trouble?" I quipped.
"If that really worried me, I wouldn't be with a thief." I am not sure why, but this answer irked me. There was no particular pride or superiority on his tone, but I still found it condescending and insulting.
"Just to shut you up, I am looking for this." I got tired of our banter and turn around. I pull the holo pendant and showed him the same model egg I showed Jet and Storm. And with that, back to searching. Except, that was leading nowhere. It was possible that not all the vaults had eggs, but it was still frustrating and the night has not helped me ease up.
"Hey." Oh, for the love of God.
"What now!?" I am at the end of my patience. However, he offered me something good. He had found an egg. "How?!" I, unconsciously, jump back up and sprinted toward him. How did he found one?
"Well, it was here with other studying tools, so I think these were..." He starts and I know where he is going to.
"Paperweight." I say. It is all I say and think. He pulled out two more eggs.
"Yeah. This possibly means they are not in the vaults." He says again.
"But rather placed as simple ornaments." I am sure I should have noticed that we are completing the other sentences, but it goes over my head. The only thing that occupies my mind is fury.
How could this imbecile do this?! These eggs are invaluable! They are part of an ancient civilization light years ahead of the now. How can you put that as paperweight?! They should be in a museum, with their own vaults! They are not worthless!
"But hey, that means it will be easier to take them." He says and snaps my bubble. He wants to reassure me. It doesn't upset me. I then feel a pain on my hand.
I clenched my fist so hard my nails are starting to sink in my skin. Still, I tell him nothing, just going back to the vents. Except, once I am close to it, I remember what happened.
"You go at the front." I say, stepping to the side. He complies, and starts getting in. I then notice my opportunity. I lift my hand and slap his ass. He jumps in the snug passage and hits his head yet again.
"Chaos dammit." He lets go, clenching his head. And I smile at the whole thing. "What was that for?!" He demands.
"To be even." I have a smirk on my face that refuses to go down. God, this was great. He stares me down, probably hoping for me to say something else, maybe even apologize. I don't change my expression.
He just gives up and takes the lead, though he checks his back one last time. I followed soon, but the thing kept going on my mind. Slapping his butt... it felt nice. I then remember our embrace, his warmth, remembering that carnal hunger that blinded us.
Dammit, I just touched his glutes! Not anything else! I follow him, trying to forget about it.
To help that, I say. "And about what you said, you are dead wrong. I know where every vault is and all these secret passages. If the rest of the eggs are dispersed as paperweight, then this is going to be a crazy goose chase."
He stopped for a moment and I had the decency to not touch his butt again. Stop with the butt, Wave. He seems to be processing it.
"But what about the security cameras?" He says. He is concerned of that until now? He is not that smart then.
"A little hack here and there and you can fake the images that the cameras emit. You can use previous recordings to do so. But it has to be fast or else, they might notice something is wrong." I explain. It doesn't feel like a chore this time.
"Is it possible for you to get the live footage of the cameras?" Now, that is an interesting idea. I give it some thought and I know our plan of attack.
"Now that you mention it." I say.
It took us a few minutes, but we get inside the computer room. The fox pushes a giant CPU to confirm this.
We are close enough. I start tinkering with my pendant and soon enough, I have every room, seen through every camera in the entire building.
I smile, satisfied. It takes a while, but I found the eggs. A statue on the garden has two on each hand on the first floor; one on the observatory, around the giant telescope on the fourth floor; and one on the rec room, on the top floor.
"Ok, now what?" He says.
"We will return to the party. It is the easiest way to get to the garden." That is the plan I offer him.
"Won't there be guards on the garden?" He says, sounding worried.
"What happened to not being concerned and all that?" I tease with a confident smile. He still looks uneasy, but it diminished.
So, we return. We needed to pass through a particular corner. I thought it was free, but a guard passes by and turned directly to me. I step away, but I am not sure he did not see me.
"Shit. Shit." I let go and turn around. I pull the map again, looking for alternative routes. We reach the other side of the pathway and I see behind the corner to my left. There is a soldier blocking our way, but it looks like it should turn away soon enough.
"It seems we are..." I start, and it seems I threw the salt at that moment.
(Crash!) Fuck. I look at him with disbelief. Not even fury, just pure surprise. He dropped a vase at his side, the noise betraying our position.
"What was that?" One of the soldier say and I panic further. I notice that there is a door in front of us, so I go there. It isn't until we are inside that I pull out the pendant.
"Something, something." I continue moving, until reaching a dead end. A room consisting of two sofas and a small table.
"Dammit." I let go again. There are no secret passages here and no other room connecting it. Not unless you mention the one from where we came from. As far as I can tell, we only have a way out. I go to the window and opened it.
"OK, let's do this." I tell him, starting to pull out my leg.
"What?" It seems he didn't see this coming. "Wait. Are you nuts? There are workers outside. They will catch us." He says.
"And what do you suggest, genius?" I say, because as far as I can tell, there is no way out. Miles thinks it for a second.
"Trust me." He says and wraps an arm around my waist.
"H-hey. Kissing me is not going to work." Honestly, I should be complaining about the fact that he was going to kiss me, but I really wouldn't mind. And why am I thinking about kissing? He just put his arm around my waist. That doesn't mean he was going to kiss me.
However, with his free hand, he pulls something from his tail. A flexible band. But before I wonder about that, came the fact that his tail split in two and they start spinning like the blades of a copter, with enough strength to lift us. No. Fucking. Way.
Shorty! All this time, he has being Shorty! And... And I kissed him. Passionately. And his voice went from a squeaky girl voice to a straight, manly one, not too deep nor too high voice. And... I really want to see him under the mask. Is he wondering the same? And... last time... well, things went wrong. I deflate a little when I remember. Is he like, waiting for the appropriate moment to catch me? Is he trying to catch me? Why else would he come so close? The whole thing about preserving our stuff... Was all that a trick?
But none of these thoughts become words. Instead, I say. "...About time." He actually shook violently. For a second, I thought he would drop me or he would fall. I want to kick myself. This was the worst time to say that.
We managed to get high enough, just before the soldiers came in. They lit up the room, and tried to find the source of the noise. They don't even bother to look up. For those who don't know, it is scientifically proven that people don't usually look up when looking for stuff or burglars. So, that saved us.
The second they left, we start descending. I can feel in his respiration that he is tired, but not breathless. And we land nicely and safely. I look at him from the side of my eye.
If you see his old recordings, you could see he could lift Sonic or one of his friends, but after a few seconds, the fox would open his mouth, desperate for air and come down to the floor.
It seems Tails has more endurance. Suddenly, I am curious. How is his body type? Is he buff? Fat? Skinny fat? He is taller than me, and the tux looked nice against his frame, but I really wish he was wearing less clothing, to get a better idea of his body type.
"Since when have you known?" I blink. Shit, I got lost on my thoughts. And for how long? No, concentrate. Answer his question.
"A while." It is not a lie, my mind had already made the association. I just ignored it.
"That's not going to be a problem, will it?" He asks.
And, I shoot him back. "You tell me."
"What do you mean?"... I let my arms fall, just hanging, as well as my mouth. Is he this forgetful or dense?
"...This is not the place to talk about that." I change the topic and walk.
Soon enough, we found the corridor that should take us to the library. I want to confront him about our last meeting. He should be upset. I would be if the roles were reversed. But what if he actually forgot it, or just let go of it? Would bringing it up reopen old wounds? I think it is better to postpone it. And the moment I convince myself to do so, the thought of seeing him without his masks because strong and a little overwhelming.
And I tell myself to stop it. It is just Shorty, the little fox who physically looks like a man... What? Stop it! It is not like he will look like a male model or anything, with a strong jaw, sensual lips, small strong eyes... Shut up brain! It is not like I can just ask him to take his mask off. Right? I... I am actually considering it. What could I do, so he lowers his guard down enough to see his face.
I think I have a plan... A very bad one admittedly. "Wait." I order, when he was about to enter the passage. Tails looks at me, curious. His face turn into surprise as I grab my mask and pull it away from my face.
And... he freezes again. Like, he doesn't react at all. Greaaaaat. Wonder if he likes it or if he just didn't see it coming. Still, I got an idea. I extend my hand, trying to touch his mask and take it away.
He backs away, harshly... Am I made of fire to you?! I balled my fist and put back my mask.
"Move it." I order him. Why did I thought this would go well?! Why did I had to humiliate myself?! I just had to try to get him to take away his mask.
The return to the party is silent and I no longer care if he is behind me or tries to do anything funny. That last action hurt me. I don't know what was I expecting.
Even if we entertain the idea that he took his mask off too. Then what? Would I feel the need to kiss him? Yeah, even without the mask, I sort of, maybe, want to make mouth to mouth contact again.
But then what? I am a thief and he is a vigilante. He will always try to catch me. And I just served this on a silver tray because I showed my face. Prior to that point, I could have pretended that I was a fan that took the opportunity and personified the swallow. Like, to get a date or something. Considering that it was a party full of rich or famous people, it is plausible. If he is trying to stop me, it will be very easy.
But now, I made it all the more complicated. Either way, I leave the bathroom and notice that the new piece of music has a lot of movement and the dancers are constantly changing partners. I join the fox one last time, only to separate from him, further and further away.
I look behind, but it seems he is not following me. Finally! Now, I can forget about this night, about my messes and just concentrate on my job.
I turn to the front and... There is a girl with pink fur in front of me. And, under my mask, my eyes shrink to its tiniest.
"I am babysitting. Older siblings. I trust they won't take down the house." Tails' voice rang on my head. Shit. Why didn't I make the connection earlier?! Shorty came with his gang too!