Work Text:
A loud crash sounded from the printer station, before a primal groan.
"Being careful?" Vector called from his desk without getting or looking up.
"The - blinkin' - thingy tray fell on me!" Charmy shouted back, before he flapped across the Office to the bathroom, leaving a trail of CYMK ink dripping behind him. Espio materialised where he had been surveying maps to grab the mop; he had just barely picked up the worst of it when Charmy came back out now splattered with diluted and drippier ink than before.
"How do you get ink stains out of… everything?"
"Shower, lots of soap, leave clothes in the tub."
"Then what?"
"Then Espio will do it for you."
Espio grumbled, but chivvied Charmy back to the bathroom with his mop before they heard the water running.
"When we're on the up, perhaps we could spring for a better printer?" Espio sighed.
"Or a better office assistant." Vector hummed in agreement."
"It's not like that's his job, Vector."
"It's not like it's any of ours, but missing posters don't make themselves, and it's way more expensive to get them done professionally."
"You're right, of course: when we're on the up, we'll go to one of those instead of doing this ourselves." He conceded, dumping the water and grabbing cleaner for a dark spot.
"Having said that, when we're on the up I mean-" Vector began, and Espio caught his eye. They all liked this game;
"Go on."
"Well, it wouldn't hurt to have somebody to run to the print shop for us, would it? Saves us time for the real detective work."
"Quite so. And they can bring back lunch."
"They can bring back lunch, now we're talking. And, since we'd be on the up-and-up,"
"Sushi, ideally, for me."
"I was thinking steak, but yeah that works. And then obviously we'd be nearer the nice restaurants anyway."
"Of course; we would be on the up-and-up."
"And so we might as well get the gofer a nice car so they can gofe quicker."
"I think that term is no longer p-c; considered demeaning by the Rodent and Small Mammals Elevation Group."
"I'm on the up-and-up-and-up. I can pay them a big donation in apologies for my outdated language."
"Oh naturally, we'd be philanthropists." Espio declared as he squeezed the cloth out.
"The philanthropic-est. Our Penthouse office would be open to all the cases nobody could afford to get help for."
"But we'd need to charge some people. To keep going up-and-up-and-up, naturally."
"We could charge based on means?"
"Like a tax? Paid annually by all to assure everyone can have our excellent service free at the point of need?"
"Yeah?"
"So we'd be like the police?"
"No! Because we'd be actually solving crimes, not just doing the bare minimum to shove people out the door."
"Oh yes, of course. So we're a council owned-"
"No, no, philanthropic cause-"
"Right, privately run, ultra wealthy detectives agency that everyone pays into to solve their crimes. How are we meeting that demand?"
"You're forgetting something, Espio:"
"Oh then please, enlighten me."
"We're on the up-and-up-and-up-and-up."
Espio gasped, like Vector had just solved string theory.
"Of course, that explains everything. How does that solve anything?"
"Well we have more employees. More Gophers - the rodent, because of all our Small Mammal-Inclusive hiring strategies obviously - to work for us and solve the cases."
"Brilliant. But how will all those detectives be organised?"
"Well, we obviously know better than anyone what it takes to be a detective."
"Certainly." Espio gestured to himself on hands and knees with ink bleeding into his gloves.
"So we train up some, then promote them and they train the rest, and we just sort of… eh y'know. Share-hold."
"Do nothing and profit?"
"Yeah. Philanthropically. Sitting around next to a pool and buying nice shoes and such."
"Philanthropy and profit are such a good pairing."
"They're best of buds, like us."
They smiled to themselves and their respective messes; Vector flicked through the letters pertaining to a missing young man, discarding the credit card bill, as Espio gave up on the floor and moved a tatty old rug to cover the spot.
"Vector, I foresee a problem:"
"Go ahead, I'm sure it's nothing that being on the up-and-up-and-so-on can't solve."
"That sounds completely boring."
Vector made a thoughtful noise, and pretended to consider it.
"Well, y'see Espio, when we get beyond the up-and-up, when we're the uppest up,"
"When, naturally,"
"That's when we start gambling and risk taking and making awful management decisions."
"Destroying our philanthropic for-profit empire? Ingenious."
"Yeah, yeah; then we get into scandals, make some terrible business decisions, Charmy gets arrested and we pay-"
"For what?"
"Eh, details aren't important, probably being annoying to law enforcement, point is we bail him out, and-"
"How our morals have curdled: Prodigal detective flouts the law!"
"Oh yeah, the papers will sound just like that. And so we have to sell the penthouse and let go of all the staff, then we can't afford a normal office, and eventually we strip back down to a skeleton crew-"
"And end up back here?"
"Yep, right back here."
"Well that all sounds excellent. I can't to get the ball rolling on our grand future." Espio hummed, parking the mop, bucket and cloth back in the cupboard. He poured them both a water from the unfiltered tap into mugs they'd gotten free at a car boot sale.
"To the good life." He said drily as he plonked it on Vector's desk, cheersing his own cup before Vector downed it.
Charmy stomped out the shower in a towel, his wings too dripping wet to fly.
"Water's all cold." He whined, shaking his fur at Vector and Espio on his way to sit by their fridge - it was so old and inefficient, it chucked out heat behind it like a grubby hairdryer.
"We really should get a working printer though, Vector." Espio hummed as he went through to the bathroom to wash Charmy's clothes.
"For sure we will, that's the first step of being on the up."