Chapter Text
“Huh,” Tom says passively to himself, one morning a week before Christmas Eve.
Their tumble dryer gave out last month, and the weather’s been pretty dismal in Green Hills since the first week of December; all bluster, rain, and storms, which means they haven’t been able to dry their laundry outside for the better part of a fortnight. The Wachowski household currently looks like a dry-cleaner’s, with sweaters and jeans and dresses and towels strewn over any free warm surface. Everything feels cluttered and messy but Green Hills doesn’t have its own laundromat and Tom would be damned before he takes a trip out of town just to wash and dry some clothes. They’re strapped for cash as is, with the whole my-house-blew-up-twice and my-car-blew-up-twice-too fiasco. Not to mention, having three additional mouths to feed and needing to replace their dryer unit. Turns out G.U.N. aren’t too willing to shell out the cash for reparations when the employee who destroyed your house is M.I.A. Trying for a baby will have to wait another year, at least.
Tails and Sonic are playing Super Smash Bros. on the big screen in the living room, a family-size bag of chips propped between them as they battle it out, glued to the game. Tom, meanwhile, stands in the adjoining kitchen area, ironing the mountain of clothes that seem to multiply by the hour. The wrinkles on his face deepen as he presses yet another shirt, but the sound of the game and the occasional bursts of laughter are oddly comforting.
Sonic’s winning their current round and Tails is starting to get pissed after his third consecutive K.O., so he takes Tom’s disgruntled noise as a golden opportunity to pause the game and halt Sonic in his winning streak.
“Hey!” Sonic jeers, “No fair, Tails!”
“Tom called my name!” Tails counters.
“He did not.”
“Did too!”
He’s frowning at the towel; the kind of frown that comes with an unexpected problem. “I wasn’t, for the record,” he says, lowering the towel slightly, “but I sure could use your help.”
“What’s up?” Tails chirps. Both he and Sonic swivel in their seats, Sonic propping an arm over the back of the sofa so he can see Tom a little better.
When he lowers the towel, Tom has a strange, constipated look on his face, his expression shifting from irritation to confusion. “Mrs. Calahan’s cat is in our garden, again,” he says, frowning down at the towel in his hands. “I told her to keep it in that darn house. Maddie’s allergic to cat fur.”
Tails takes it as his sign to investigate and so he hops off the sofa while Sonic slumps back into the cushions, not so eager to leave their game paused mid-match. “What do you mean?”
“There’s black fur all over this.”
“Why would the cat be in our bathroom?” Sonic chuckles to himself. “Maybe that’s why all of Maddie’s expensive hair stuff is missing, like she keeps saying. Mittens likes the life of lux-u-raaaay.”
“No, I’ve been the one taking that.” Tom pauses, looking both ways conspiritorially. “Not that you heard that from me.”
“Noted,” Sonic and Tails say in unison.
“It’s weird, though,” Tom mutters, “of all towels, why is this the one with cat fur on it? It’s been missing for weeks.” Nonetheless, Tom balls the towel up and sets it aside in a pile to be sorted separately. “Damn it. That’s one of the nicer towels, too. One of the ones from the set Rachel got us last Christmas, with the matching flannels.”
Tails toddles over to where Tom’s sorting through the clothes and linens to be ironed, and picks the towel up. “I can try and sterilise it for you,” Tails offers. “Though, it’s strange.” He thumbs over the fibre of the towel, examining it like it’s a puzzle. “It doesn’t smell like cat.”
The penny drops. The words hit Sonic like a ton of bricks, and his spine stiffens involuntarily, mind racing. Oh shit, he thinks. Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit. He tries his damndest not to move, lest he draw attention to himself. His back is facing Tom and Tails and he hopes they don’t see the expression he’s making; he can’t imagine it’s a pleasant one.
“You can tell whether or not it’s a cat by your nose?”
“Yeah,” Tails says. He raises the towel to his nose and gives it a little sniff. “Yeah, that’s definitely not cat.”
He knows that once Tom starts piecing this together there won’t be an easy explanation, so he launches himself from the sofa and skips over to the ironing board. “We-ell!” Sonic blusters. He snatches the towel from Tails’ hand and gives it a good shake with exaggerated care, beating off the loose hairs. There aren’t that many, thank God, but the few stuck on flutter to the ground. “Good news is that you can keep the towel! Right, Tom?”
“Yeah,” Tom responds, though his frown remains. He takes the towel from Sonic and inspects it with quiet intensity, his gaze running over the fibers like he’s looking for answers. “But if it’s not a cat, then what the hell was on this?”
“Cat?” Sonic says, a bit too quickly. He forces a chuckle. “I thought it smelled like cat. It sure smells like Mitsy smells. Mittens. Whatever.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Tails corrects, small face pinched in a frown. “Plus, Mittens is grey.”
“Is she?” Tom and Sonic both ask at the same time. Sonic blinks a few times, trying to recall, but he can’t seem to focus. “I guess you’re right. She’s a little more grey than black.”
“She’s definitely black,” Sonic quips. “But I mean, grey, black, they both look the same, right? Ha ha!”
Tails is watching him. Sonic can feel the eyes on the side of his skull. He keeps his gaze laser-focused on Tom and resists the knee-jerk reaction to meet Tails’ eyes. “Anyway, I’m sure we can just re-wash it and it’ll be fine. Wouldn’t want to get on Rachel’s bad side more than we already are, after the whole stealing her identity thing we did.”
Tom shudders and groans at the thought. “Yeah, great call. That woman puts the fear of God into me. Anyway, are you two going back to play your game? Don’t forget that Maddie and I want that room clean and tidy by six – we’ve got box-sets to catch up on.”
“Yeah,” Tails replies slowly, his gaze still on Sonic, like he’s not entirely sure what just happened. Sonic can feel the pressure building, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “Let’s go, Sonic.”
When they return to the sofa, Sonic bombs the rest of their matches. He tells himself that he does it to let Tails win but truth be told he can’t think or focus, waylaid by the blaring alarm bells going off in his head. He stuffs chips in his mouth and counts himself lucky this one time that an error on both his and Shadow’s part was brushed off (literally) pretty easily with some lies, but he knows they might not get away with it next time.
As Luigi lays into Pit on the screen, Sonic is suddenly struck with an idea so perfect it nearly knocks the wind out of him. He gasps and nearly chokes on the macerated chips in his mouth, coughing into his elbow until eyes water.
“You good, Sonic?” Tails places a paw on his back, giving it a few hits to loosen the caught food.
“Yep,” Sonic wheezes, thumping his chest with a grin. “I’m good.”